


Good Whiskey in Bad Wounds

by NatalieIronside



Category: Diablo (Video Game), Diablo II, Diablo III
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Coming of Age, Dark Fantasy, F/M, Hate to Love, I just really like the necromancers okay, I take a hammer and fix the canon, M/M, Multi, Substance Abuse, Wangst, kvetchniks to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatalieIronside/pseuds/NatalieIronside
Summary: She always dreamed of being a hero.  He would've preferred literally anything else.  When Sanctuary is imperiled once again, she finds a chance to prove herself while he desperately wishes he could be somewhere else.  Will they be able to put aside their differences and save the world?  Probably not.
Relationships: Amazon/Necromancer (Diablo II), Necromancer/Paladin (Diablo II)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 20





	1. 1: Darkness on the Edge of Town

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is a continuation of a Diablo 2 fanfic I started writing when I was 12. That was a million years ago, back before D3 was even something we dared to hope for, so I will be playing a bit fast and loose with canon in order to preserve my original concepts & characters and what have you. CW for substance abuse, setting-appropriate action violence, and people processing their trauma very unhealthily. What little semblance of an outline I have is vaguely remembered from 7th grade so things could change and if they do I'll add additional warnings as/if they become appropriate. Thank u for coming with me on this journey as I attempt to finally kill the fic idea that won't die.

**1.**

The sorcerer sat in the brush away from the camp and debated whether or not he wanted to approach. 

The night was dark and miserably cold, and the caravan encamped on the road had built a rather inviting watch fire. He could smell their evening meal, and it reminded him that he hadn’t eaten for days, or slept for days; his training allowed him to ignore the needs of the flesh more easily than most people, but he was nearly at his limit and the thought of a warm fire and a hot meal were straining his acetism. But the fact that the caravan camp looked so inviting made him question if approaching them was such a good idea. 

The night was full of terrors, ahead and behind, and all of Khanduras was on fire, but the caravan had not set much of a watch. They could’ve circled their wanes and built a fortified camp, but they had not, as though they were traveling through some friendly land where order prevailed. Though the allure of a meal and a night’s rest were powerful, the camp looked like a shining beacon in the darkness, inviting all of the terrors that walked through it, and that thought made the sorcerer wonder if he couldn’t make it the rest of the way to Eastgate on his own; it was only two more days or so. 

The most put-together part of the camp was the watchman, an enormous blonde woman who walked about girt for war, a bow in her hands and a spear across her back. She looked young, about his age, hard and noble and grim. The sorcerer had seen her kind before, and thought that her presence, at least, conveyed some semblance of safety. He wondered how an Askari warrior had managed to find herself in Khanduras, but he supposed that someone could say the same thing about him. Still, though he knew a killer when he saw one, there was only the one of her, and the night held innumerable terrors. 

He had just made up his mind to pass by the caravan and make his own way to Eastgate when the Askari, making another pass around the perimeter of the camp, stopped, and stared right in his direction, cocking her head like a bird-dog. The sorcerer kept quiet and still, willing himself to fade into the shadows. 

As quick as thinking, the Amazon drew back her bow and fired an arrow into the darkness. It thumped into the trunk of a tree a foot or so from the sorcerer’s head. He yelped, and she nocked another arrow and barked, “Come over here into the light. Now.” 

Grumbling, the sorcerer got to his feet, touched the amulet hanging around his neck, and walked slowly toward the camp with his arms outstretched. When he came into view, the Amazon lowered her bow, smirked, and said, “Well, you don’t look like much of a threat. You don’t look like too much at all.” 

The sorcerer gave an exaggerated bow. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you, as well. I am Dulas Xul of Kehjistan, at your service.” 

“You’ve been sitting in the forest watching our camp for the past hour. What's your business?” 

“Before I chose to accept your gracious invitation, I was debating whether or not to come try and beg a meal off of you; I haven’t eaten for days.” He rubbed his gaunt, hollow stomach for emphasis. “But, if it’s all the same to you, madam, I think I’ll keep walking. My destination is not so far.” 

“Why not come share fire and food with us, stranger? There is plenty.” 

“Because, good lady, in the hour I spent watching your camp, you are the only guard I’ve seen. You people move about as though you have no idea where you are, like a gaggle of princesses out maying. Better to be alone and hungry than to sleep with a target on my back.” 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” 

To her surprise, Dulas Xul laughed. It was a terrible, manic sound, and his eyes glazed over with a madman’s flash, but his sour expression relaxed into one of relief, and he said, “So I’ve managed to stay ahead of the news, then. Oh, Mother, I was not expecting that.” 

“What news?” 

“Tell me, is this caravan heading to Eastgate? And do you plan on leaving at first light?” 

“Yes. But why? Explain yourself.” 

“I think I will be begging a meal off of you, then. But, please, take me to your caravan master; I have news for him.” 

“First, you will tell _me_. You’re still a stranger here.” 

Dulas Xul started to speak, but the words caught in his throat. He grimaced, and it was a look that the Amazon recognized; the look of a warrior who has seen too much of bloody battle and tries his best not to think on it. He looked down, drew in a shallow breath, and muttered, “They . . . they failed.” 

“Who failed, stranger?” 

“They failed. Khanduras burns. Diablo walks the earth.” 

“Look at me in my eyes, stranger.” 

He grimaced and looked up into her eyes. She studied him for a moment and muttered, “Athula . . . You’re telling the truth.” 

“I am a very bad liar.” 

“Come with me, Dulas Xul. You have to speak with Warriv.” 

“Yes, of course, ah . . . I don’t believe I caught your name.” 

She rolled her eyes. “My name is Alexa, Kehjistani.” 

He looked up at her again, raising his brows in disbelief. “Wait. Are you . . .” 

“Yes, I am, and I would appreciate it if you kept your mouth shut about that. What is a necromancer doing in Khanduras, anyway?” 

“Don’t ask, and I won’t ask what a prince is doing in Khanduras.” 

“Prin _cess_. And I suppose that’s fair enough.” 

*** 

Dulas Xul drew a lot of suspicious looks as the two of them headed for the fire in the center of the camp, but he was used to that; most of the caravanners looked to be Aranochan, and they’d likely never seen a priest of Rathma before, though they’d surely heard many dubious stories. One in particular, a tall, blonde merchant with a scheming look about him, observed him not with suspicion but with undisguised hatred. Dulas Xul gave him his biggest, friendliest smile as they passed. 

The caravan master, a tall and dour Aranochan, knelt by the fire, tending a tea kettle. When they walked up, he smiled and said, “Hello, Alexa. Is this the stranger you warned me about?” 

“Yes. This is Dulas Xul, of Kehjistan. He brings troubling news.” 

“His sort usually do. No offense, friend.” 

“Ah, none taken,” Dulas Xul said, squatting down next to him. “There’s no malice in the truth, and I know we’re a grim and gloomy lot. Is that tea?” 

“It is, and you’re welcome to it. But what news do you bring?” 

The necromancer’s troubled and reluctant look returned. He examined the ground between the two of them and muttered, “You . . . you need to re-order your camp. Circle your wagons and set more watchmen. And you need to do it now.” 

“You expect trouble?” 

“I’m fleeing from trouble, and I’m probably fleeing right into it as well. They . . . they failed.”

“Who failed?”

Dulas Xul closed his eyes and grimaced, wringing his hands and sucking in a quick breath through his teeth. “My friends. My friends failed. And I failed to save them.” 


	2. 2: The Shadow of the Past

** 2 **

The necromancer slept little, spoke little, and drank much.

Alexa, daughter of Xaera awoke a few hours before sunrise, shaved and made water, and went to make a circuit of the now much sma ller and more secure camp beside the Tristram Road. There, under the stars, she found the odd little man sitting alone and staring up at the fading moon, a jug of Warriv’s wine in his hand. He noticed her, gave her a small wave, and returned his attentio n to the moon.

She approached him, and when he didn’t acknowledge her for a long, awkward moment, she gestured at the jug of wine and said, “I see you’re getting an early start.”

“We all have our vices, princess,” he said, without looking over.

“I  will ask you not to call me that here.”

“Alright. I won’t.”

“I’m glad to see you here. I wanted to speak with you.”

“Well, that makes one of us.”

“I know we agreed not to ask each other prying questions--”

“We certainly did.”

She rolled her eyes.  “In light of the grim news you bring, I would like to ask you a few questions.”

“I would so much prefer if you didn’t. I’m busy.”

“Busy? You’re drinking wine and watching the stars.”

“It’s hard work, but someone has to do it. Now piss off, your highn ess, and leave me to it.”

“You may be the rudest person I have ever met.”

“And yet you’re still here.”

“Listen, Rathman: You walked out of the darkness in the dead of night to tell us that the evil we were told was defeated is walking the earth, and  that you have first-hand knowledge of it. You realize that that sounds out of the ordinary. And I know enough of the world to know that it’s unlikely for a priest of Rathma to be aligned with dark forces, but the others may be less enlightened, and it is unusual to see one of your folk wandering so far from home.”

“Well, we established last night that I could say the same about you.”

“We need answers, and I would like to take the measure of you.”

Dulas Xul looked her up and down. She was tall and impo singly built; her arms rippled with an archer’s iron thews like balls of twine under her skin, and she carried herself with a haughty and self-assured air, so that she seemed as much like a woman carved out of marble as a real woman of flesh and blood. He r figure was juxtaposed against a soft, young face and sad eyes that would’ve given her an air of youthful innocence if he weren’t so sure she could pick him and break him in half if she wanted to. With a shrug, he said, “I’d . . . really rather you didn’ t, but I guess I can’t fault your logic. Here’s what I’ll do, Askari: For every question you ask me, I’ll ask one of you.”

She huffed. “I suppose I can accept that, as long as you mind yourself. What brought you from the Necropolis all the way to Khan duras?”

“A girl.”

“. . . That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“And what happened?”

“I loved her, she hated me, and now she’s dead or worse and I wish I was. And that, I believe, was  _ two _ questions.”

“Alright. Ask yours, then.”

“I’m not one to pay a lot of atte ntion to international politics, admittedly, but didn’t Xaera have a son?”

The Amazon rolled her eyes. “And at the beginning of time, Tathamat and Anu only created two realms, yet here we are. Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Fair. So what brought _you_ all the way to Khanduras?”

“Not so much to say. I’ve long wanted to forge a name for myself outside of my mother’s shadow—not to speak ill of her, she’s a fine woman, but the Queen of the Askari casts a long shadow indeed—so when news reached us of the t rouble in Khanduras and the Oracles said one of us must go, I was the first to volunteer. It seems I arrived too late, so I offered Warriv my services as a caravan guard and I’m taking the long way home, hoping that’ll give enough time for the prophecy of the Oracles to reveal itself. They’ve never been wrong before.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are, or how lucky you’ll be if they are wrong.”

“Which brings me to my next question: What exactly happened in Tristram? We were told that the evil had  been defeated, and in no uncertain terms."

Dulas Xul raised the jug to his lips and took an uncomfortably long drink of wine. Wiping his mouth, he said, “I may be almost drunk enough to talk about that. Three heroes went down into the catacombs beneath  Tristram’s cathedral, and they were all just as strong as the rumors say, three of the best. And they walked fearlessly into the Hellmouth and did battle with the Lord of Terror himself. They defeated him in battle—knew they would—but, well, demons are c unning creatures. They defeated him, but they failed to destroy him, and so they were undone by their own success. When they resurfaced, they . . . Alexa, you’ve been in battle, right? You’ve seen what it does to people?”

“I have.”

“They looked like t hey’d returned with bloody swords from a long war—which is to be expected. But there was something . . . else. Some darkness we couldn’t quite fathom hung over all of them. That’s to be expected as well—one doesn’t meddle in the business of extraplanar  busy-bodies or travel to realms of creation you weren’t invited to without at least bringing something back—but no-one thought much of it at the time. None of them attended the celebrations that were thrown for them, none of them spoke much at all, and on e-by-one they left the town. Jazreth was first, the Vizjerei sorcerer; he left in the dead of night without telling anyone. Blood Raven announced that she was returning to her family in Eastgate, and so she left. And the last of them . . . the last of t hem was Aidan, the mad king’s son. He looked the worst off of the three, like he’d aged fifty years down in those pits. I could tell, right off I could tell that the man who came out of the cathedral was not the same man who’d gone in, but even I didn’t  know the half of it. How could I? I deal in flesh and blood.” The necromancer took another drink. “Aidan . . . Aidan did not make a quiet exit. He announced his departure quite loudly.”

He expected the Amazon to ask more prying questions, but instead she knelt beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. She said nothing, and her grim expression didn’t change, but he recognized the gesture and took comfort in it even as he chafed under it. He sighed, examined the ground between them, and said, “Demon s . . . demons swarmed out of the Hellmouth, out of the cathedral, into the town. It was a massacre. I barely escaped, and as far as I know I was the only one. So I . . . I’m going east. Aidan spoke of going east, so I’m following him, trying to get ah ead of him. I don’t know what his purposes are or where exactly he’s going, but he’s made himself very easy to track.”

“That’s terrible, necromancer, and you have my sympathy. To think you came all the way to Khanduras to chase a girl and had to flee fr om . . . that.”

“Well, if you’d asked me at the time, I would’ve said I was coming to help do battle with Diablo under Tristram, but that was secondary. The girl was my chief concern.”

“What was her name?”

The necromancer gave her a pained look and gro und his teeth together. “It . . . it doesn’t matter. She’s dead by now, or worse, and she never wanted me to begin with. Unrequited pining is for poets and schoolboys.”

“I can tell there’s something to that that you aren’t telling me.”

“Oh, can you, n ow? What a brilliant detective you are. Please don’t fucking ask me about her.”

“Alright. I believe it’s your turn, anyway.”

“Yes, here’s a question: How old are you? I’ve never been any good at guessing such things, but you look quite young.”

“Twenty winters. Same as you, I’d guess.”

“You’d be close; I’m 19. You’re young in the face, but the way you’ve hardened yourself for war makes you look a few years older, especially around the shoulders.”

She gave him a dark look, and he saw fear and  sorrow flash across her eyes, but she cocked an eyebrow and asked, “You think my . . . shoulders make me look . . . old? What does that mean?”

“Older, and right-handed. Your right shoulder sits just a bit higher than your left. It’s the one you exercis e the most; an Askari war bow has a draw of, what, a hundred pounds?”

“Huh. That’s a remarkable observation.”

“Most people probably wouldn’t notice, but I do know a thing or two about muscles and bones.”

She winced. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

“And you  thought I was going to say something crass about the way you’re built. I wouldn’t, and neither would any man; you, like most women, are very easy on the eyes.”

“I won’t speak of such things with a stranger.”

“Fair. I guess last night’s agreement to lea ve each other well enough alone still stands, at least until one of us gets curious and starts a game of questions again. But you probably have more to offer there than I do; barring some recent unpleasantness, I take pride in being very boring.”

“I coul d spend another few hours bragging about battles I’ve won, but I got what I wanted out of you and there’s a watchman I need to go relieve. Has Warriv given you a job with the caravan?”

“No, and I hope he continues to overlook me. It would interfere with my important work.”

“Drinking wine and watching the stars?”

“A very important job. As I see it, my one and only responsibility right now is to get in front of Aidan. And once I’ve done that, I intend to beg my way back to the Necropolis, lock myself i n the library, and climb into a bottle until all earthly sense has left my body.”

“Was it really so terrible?”

“You have no idea. And if you’re one of those fools who prays to the gods, pray that you never have to find out.”

Alexa, daughter of  Xaera stood back up and examined the funny little man sitting on the grass in front of her. He was gaunt and pale, like most of his people, with the soft, spindly arms of a scholar, dressed in a travel-worn set of billowy black vestments, long white hair  and a stupid little beard; he didn’t look like much. But he had a long, cruel dagger belted around his waist, and he seemed to be brimming with repressed arcane potential, like an angry sky before a thunderstorm.

“One last question,” she said.

“Oh, Hell s. What now?”

“That amulet around your neck that you’re always touching. What is that?”

He held it up to give her a better look. Hanging from a leather cord around his neck was a yellow human tooth. “My badge of office,” he said. “Rathma’s left cani ne.”

Alexa gave him a dubious look. He shrugged and said, “There are 206 bones and 32 teeth in one human body, and there are 238 initiates in our order at any given time.”

“Huh. I’m not exactly well-read when it comes to necromantic lore, but I do know that Rathma lived to a great old age. Rather odd for a man to live that long with all of his teeth intact.”

Dulas Xul shrugged again. “Well, he was a nephilim.” 

***

The rest of the night and the early morning passed quietly. True to his word, the n ecromancer didn’t lift a finger to help them break camp and get on the road; he found an empty spot amongst the cargo in the back of Warriv’s wagon and settled in without moving or speaking. But, even without the help, they packed up in good order and wer e on the road by sunrise. The day broke bright and blue and clear, and the rolling green fields and verdant forests of Khanduras looked downright pleasant under the morning sun, but in the back of her mind Alexa could feel a pall of malevolence hanging ov er everything. A part of her thought that she was being foolish, that the necromancer’s stories had gotten to her, but over the years she had learned to trust her instincts. Sitting next to Warriv in the lead wagon, she kept her bow ready and kept a weat her eye on the road ahead.

Just before noon, the wagon crested a high hill and they looked out over a wide, rolling moor scattered here and there with farmsteads, brakes of trees, and pools of dark water. Warriv smiled at the sight, noting that they were n’t so far from Eastgate now, but Alexa perked up, pointed far down the road in front of them, and said, “There. There are people coming toward us.”

“Where?” the caravan master asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“Your eyes aren’t as sharp as mine. Looks l ike eight or ten of them, about a mile ahead of us down the road.”

“Do you think they mean us harm?”

“Too far away to tell, but I have a bad feeling about this. One of those bad feelings I’ve learned to trust.”

Dulas Xul, sitting a few feet  behind them, said nothing, but he grimaced in anticipation.

Soon enough, Warriv saw them as well: Ten human figures, women, coming toward them in a marching column. He turned to Alexa and asked, “These are . . . not friends of ours, are they?”

“No,” she said. “Circle the wagons.”

Warriv stood up and waved to the other drivers, who followed him off of the road and goaded their oxen into a tightening circle. When they stopped, Alexa stood up in the wagon, nocked an arrow, and said, “This should n’t be too difficult. There are only ten of them.”

“Two for each of my guards,” Warriv grumbled.

“I have more than ten arrows.”

“Fair enough.”

The group rushed toward the circled wagons, women in the ragged remnants of leather armor, with wild shocks  of red and brown hair and mad, baleful looks in their eyes. They wielded long, cruel spears, and howled bloody murder as they came. Alexa, unimpressed, let an arrow fly. It struck one of the charging wild-women in the chest, stopping her run and pitchin g her into a heap on the road as the other nine came on. She nocked another arrow.

From the back of the wagon, she heard a wet sucking noise, as of a bloodhound taking a long sniff. After loosing her second arrow, she turned back and saw Dulas Xul stand ing up, his dagger out of its sheath, an uncomfortable look in his cold, grey eyes. He sucked in a great breath of air through his nose, nodded, and said, calmly and evenly, as though it were a normal thing for a person to say: “Blood.”

As the Amazon tu rned her attention back to their attackers, the necromancer ran forward and leaped down from the wagon, rushing into the ranks of the wild-women as quick as a cat. He waved his hand over one of the corpses and barked a word Alexa could not understand, and the fallen wild-woman began to convulse and bloat like a drowning victim soaking in a river for many days compressed into a split second. The corpse ruptured with a horrible, wet popping sound, showering the remaining attackers in viscera and miasma, tho ugh the detritus seemed to fly safely around the necromancer. Only one of the wild-women remained standing, and she howled like a beast and rushed at him with her lance. He pointed his dagger toward her and growled another word, and another corpse ruptur ed, this one sending a shaft of jagged bone flying through the air and into her torso.

Dulas Xul sheathed his dagger, took a look around at his defeated foes, and began to laugh, a horrible, manic laugh. Still laughing, he sank to his knees.

Warriv and  Alexa came up next to him, and the caravan master looked about and said, “These women . . . these are Rogues. These are Eastgate Rogues. I don’t know what this means, but it can’t be good.”

“Yes,” the necromancer laughed, with tears streaming down his f ace, “they are! We were attacked in the wilderness by mad Eastgate Rogues! Oh, Mother, it’s just . . . so funnily terrible.”

“Why do you laugh, Rathman?” the Amazon asked.

“You remember . . . Alexa, do you remember, I told you that the girl I  fancied was ‘dead or worse’?”

“Aye.”

“This is 'or worse’.”


	3. 3:  Say Her Name

** 3 **

It had only been a week, but every day felt like it dragged on for a decade.

Zakarus fancied himself a man of action; waiting had never suited him, and being a camp guard felt like wait ing with additional steps. He thought he’d become used to boredom by then—war was mostly boredom—but the sense of futility hanging over the camp made every little thing so much harder to bear. As hard as it was on him, he couldn’t imagine how hard it mus t be on the Rogues.

When he’d reached the moors only to be told that the road into the east was blocked, he’d found the Sisters’ captain—a grim and delightfully terrifying woman named Kashya—and offered her his services as a warrior, but she’d been reluct ant to take action, preferring to stay bivouacked, to wait and see. Zakarus could hardly blame her, considering the circumstances, but he’d always hated waiting, and it was still a long way to Travincal.

At noon on the eighth day, he was standing watch a short march from the Rogues’ camp alongside one of their archers, a red-haired woman named Fiona. The ever-perceptive Sister pointed toward a few dark shapes a fair distance down the road and said, “Looks like a caravan coming this way.”

“Bully for them ,” Zakarus grumbled. “More guests to join us in the old cattle pen.”

“They’re coming down the Tristram Road; they’d have to have some steel in them to make it across the Blood Moor. This could be something.”

“True enough. These devils fight like, well , like devils.”

“Like Rogues, Zakarus. They fight how Kashya trained them to fight.”

Zakarus grimaced. He wanted, desperately, to give Fiona some sympathy, to tell her that he knew what she was going through, that he recognized the grief he saw in  her eyes, but over the past year or so he’d found his skill with words deserting him more and more. He kept silent, and only nodded.

Within another hour or so, a caravan of ten wagons drawn by oxen came up the road, the lead wagon driven by a tall, dour  Aranochan and guarded by—of all things—an Askari warrior. They came to a stop as Fiona walked into the middle of the road and flagged them down.

“Hail, outlanders,” she called out as Warriv’s wagon rolled to a stop. “Are you on your way to Eastgate?”

“ Aye,” Warriv replied. “My caravan is bound for Eastgate and Lut Gholein, but I have a feeling that you’re here to deliver bad news.”

“You’d be right. Eastgate Keep was assaulted by the minions of Hell not long ago, and it . . . it fell to treachery. Th e road east is blocked.”

“I was afraid of that.”

A peel of mocking laughter echoed out from the back of the wagon, and the Amazon rolled her eyes. Fiona looked behind the two of them, attempting to find the source of the sound, and said, “It will do you no good to turn back, either; all of Khanduras is on fire. What remains of the Sisterhood is encamped not far across the moors; you’re welcome to stay with us in safety while we figure out what to do next. Zakarus and I will escort you.”

Zakarus gave a slight bow. “Zakarus of Dunncraig, at your service, sir.”

“Well met, friend,” the caravan master replied. “Are you a Knight of Westmarch?”

“I am, sir.”

“Well, that, at least, is good news. Your Order has saved me from losing a small fortune over the years. Lead the way, noble paladin; we can talk more once we’ve reached your camp.”

The anonymous, mad laughter echoed up from amongst Warriv’s baggage again.

***

Not far down the road, a rude wooden palisade rose up out of the moor, warded all about  by Rogues in leather armor wielding long war bows. A palpable sense of futility and defeat hung over the whole affair, so thick the travelers could almost taste it, and the atmosphere was not helped by the wet, rotting smell of the moors all about them.  Fiona and Zakarus led the caravan through a gap in the palisade and into the camp where two women stood waiting with an honor guard of Rogues. One of the women was wizened and stooped with age, the other a few decades younger and girt for war. After brin ging the wanes to a stop, Warriv and Alexa climbed down from their seats, and the warrior-woman smirked and said, “Welcome, outlanders, to our glorious hovel.”

The older woman sighed and rolled her eyes. Warriv gave a slight bow and said, “Thank you for  your welcome. We are . . . er,  _ were _ traveling into the east, but these two met us on the road and informed us that the way through Eastgate is closed.”

“That is so,” said the old woman. “I am Akara, high priestess of the Sisterhood of the  Sightless Eye, and this is Kashya, our war matron. I’m afraid we can offer you but poor shelter behind these rickety walls. The evil that beset the town of Tristram has spread across the land and driven us from Eastgate Keep. The road through the mounta ins is shut.”

Alexa stepped forward. “This is terrible news,” she said. “My heart grieves for my cousins’ misfortune.”

“Thank you for that,” Kashya replied. “You’re very brave to have come here, Askari.”

“I must ask: How fares the Sightless Eye thro ugh all this?”

The two Rogues looked back and forth at each other and sighed in unison. Akara examined the ground between them and said, “It pains me to say that our charge was lost. It was no lesser devil who bested us; the attack was led by none  other than Andariel, the Maiden of Anguish herself. And she brought some devilry with her that turned many of our own sisters against us. We . . . we were no match.”

Kashya nodded. “Many Rogues died bravely to defend our home, but it was like no foe we ’d ever faced before.”

“You still have quite a few fine warriors here, at least,” Alexa said. “And for whatever it’s worth, you have me. I’ll aid you in overcoming this evil, however I’m able to.”

Zakarus grinned from ear to ear and gave her a comradel y nod. Kashya looked back and forth between the two of them and said, “It will take more than just killing a few beasts in the wilderness to earn my trust, but . . . thank you, cousin. For now, find places for your wanes, and find food and water, and res t from your journey. When you’re refreshed, come find me and we’ll make what war council we can. I—who is that?”

Alexa looked to where the Rogue pointed and saw the necromancer climbing down from the side of the wagon, attempting to be inconspicuous but doing a very poor job of it, sticking out like a sore thumb in his morbid vestments. He hopped to the ground and looked at Kashya, and his already pale face went ashen grey as though he’d seen a ghost.

“Ah, good day, madam,” he said, giving a low, exagg erated bow. “Dulas Xul of Kehjistan, at your service.” And he spun on his heel and made to walk away.

Zakarus strode forward, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around. “You there,” the paladin growled. “What in Akarat’s name is a black priest of Rath ma doing in these lands?”

Dulas Xul’s look of mingled horror and awkwardness hardened into one of anger, and he growled back, “Black priest I may be, but I’ll not be made to answer to a  _ Zakarumite _ . Go back to your mad bishop, zealot.” 

To everyone’s sur prise, the paladin backed down at the admonishment. He sighed and turned away from the necromancer, who kept walking away from the group. Alexa watched him as he walked off a ways, stopped, took a look around, and headed toward a tent on the far side of  the encampment where a few travelers were gathered together, sitting and drinking.

“Do you . . . know that man?” Kashya asked.

The Amazon shook her head. “No. We found him last night, lost and starving in the wilderness by the Tristram Road. I  think he’s a bit . . . soft in the head. He has his reasons, I’ll say that much, but I don’t think he’s what I’d call trustworthy.”

She trotted after him and caught up with him before he’d reached the makeshift tavern. “Just a moment,” she said, steppin g in front of him. “There’s more that you aren’t telling me.”

“Oh, are we doing this again?”

“Something tells me it’s relevant. Being among the Rogues upsets you, and their war matron seems to frighten you. What is going on here?”

“I . . . don’t want to talk about it.”

“The more reluctant you are, the more it convinces me that I need to know.”

“ _ Fuck off! _ Fuck off with your damned questions, woman, and leave. Me.  _ Alone. _ If it’s really so fucking important, I’m sure everything will come to light i n time, but I’m not interested in hurrying any of that along.  _ Fuck off and bother someone else for once! _ ”

Alexa felt rage building in her bosom at being so disrespected, but, looking into the necromancer’s eyes, she saw that he was on the verge of tears  even as he berated her. She turned away from him, shaking her head. Dulas Xul continued on his way to the tent, where a traveler stood behind a makeshift bar, serving drinks from barrels. He pushed his way up to the bar, dug around in his vestments unti l he produced a pouch of coins, and asked, “What is the strongest spirit you have?”

“Ah . . . I’ve got a cask of Kingsport brandy here," the barman said. “Could clean rust off of a sword. Bit pricey, though.”

The necromancer took two gold pieces out of his coin pouch and dropped them on the bar. “Yes, that sounds perfect. One of those, please. Quickly.”

The barman poured him a mug of beautiful amber liquid. He took it, muttered thanks, and scuttled off to find a place to sit far away from the other patrons.

He’d only been sitting a moment when Zakarus came up and, awkwardly, took a seat beside him. He rolled his eyes, turned away from the paladin, and took a long, deep drink.

“Ah, listen,” the paladin said, with some difficulty. “I, ah . . . I t hink we got off on the wrong foot, you and I.”

“Oh, really? And what makes you think that?”

“I, ah . . . I think I owe you an apology.”

That made Dulas Xul turn to face him. The necromancer cocked an eyebrow and said, “Well, that is certainly the  last thing I expected to hear today.”

“Indeed. I have my reasons for distrusting you and your kind, and I won’t apologize for that, but . . . I suppose you’d have your reasons to dislike me as well. I’m not of the Hand of Zakarum, though; I’m a Knight o f Westmarch.”

“I won’t lie to you; that doesn’t do very much to put my mind at ease.”

“I suppose that’s fair, and I’ll . . . I’ll not bore you with politics. Enough to say that, given recent events, the Knights of Westmarch are not so zealous as we once were.”

“Oh?”

“I got myself trapped here because I’m traveling into the east, same as you. I’m on my way to Kurast, to Travincal. I want to go see with my own eyes if things are really as bad as they seem to be. To see what kind of men could’ve produc ed such a monster as the Archbishop Lazarus.”

Dulas Xul arched both of his brows and looked the paladin up and down. He was a strong and handsome Westron, perhaps in his mid-20s, and he seemed genuine; the uncomfortable look of sublime awkwardness on his face made the necromancer sure that the apology was an honest one. “I don’t believe I caught your name,” he said, taking another drink.

“Zakarus of Dunncraig, a Knight of Westmarch.”

“Well, I’m glad there can be some peace between us, Zakarus of Dunncr aig. I’m Dulas Xul, son of Dulas Karnath, adept of Rathma.”

“It’s . . . well, I’d be lying if I said it was a pleasure, but like you said, it’s good for us to have some peace between us. We’ve more important problems to worry about these days.”

The nec romancer laughed. “Oh, I’ll drink to that.”

“Oh, indeed. You . . . you seem to be a man who enjoys a good drink, Xul.”

Dulas Xul sighed and took another long draft of his brandy. After a few moments’ silence, he said, “You know, you remind me of a man I used to know.”

“And what does that mean?”

“A . . . very close friend of mine. Brave, strong, handsome, a man of honor and principles. Yes, you remind me of him.”

“What happened to this friend of yours?”

“Nothing good.”

Zakarus gave him an  awkward, quizzical look, thought better of asking for further explanation, and got up, clapping him on the shoulder and saying, “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. The way things are going, I’m sure we’ll be sick of each other’s company soon enough.”

“Wel l, I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“Oh?”

“Tell me, Zakarus, are you a . . . man who prefers cats, by any chance?”

“Am I a what?”

“Ah, nevermind. Forget it.”

The paladin left him to it and headed back toward the camp’s entrance. Passing by  Alexa, he said, “You were quite right, Amazon. He’s certainly an odd one.”

“That’s a very polite way of putting it,” she grumbled.

“He seems a man beset on all sides by devils he can’t escape.”

“Aye, something like that.”

“He told me I reminded him of an old friend, and then he asked me if I’m a man who prefers cats.”

Alexa snorted, trying to suppress laughter. Recovering her regal bearing, she said, “Well, that improves my opinion of him a bit, if only a bit.”

“What does that mean? I feel like  I’m the butt of some joke no-one's explaining.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

***

Alexa and  Zakarus set about helping  Warriv and the other caravanners get settled into the encampment while the necromancer  was busy, and a few hours passed by as the afternoon dragged on. Just as the sun was beginning to dip into the west, a war-horn blew somewhere off in the moors and Fiona, who’d been watching the gap in the palisade, came running over to where Kashya stood. The Amazon and paladin dropped what they were doing and followed, with Xul trailing after them.

“Two of our scouts are returning,” Fiona announced. “It . . . doesn’t look good.”

Sure enough, two other Rogues came walking into the camp a moment later. One was injured and leaned on her companion’s shoulder; the other was shaking with nerves and looked as though she’d seen Hell itself.

Akara took the injured woman away to her tent, and the other stood steeling herself for a moment before she stammered, “ We . . . we were by the monastery graveyard.”

“What happened, Sister?” Kashya asked.

“It seems  Andariel is not content to take only our living. And it seems the darkness spreading out of Tristram runs deeper than we thought.”

“What did you find in the graveyard?”

“We were . . . attacked.”

“Obviously. Attacked by what?”

The Rogue gritted her teeth. “Kashya, we were attacked by Sister Blood Raven.”

As the Rogues gasped in horror and revulsion, Dulas Xul began to laugh, that horrible manic laugh that Alexa was becoming accustomed to. Kashya turned to him, hatred flashing in her eyes, and growled, “And  _ what _ about that is so funny to you, outlander?”

“Nothing,” he said, as tears began to well up in his eyes. “ Of course it’s not funny at all. It’s just . . . when we arrived here, I recognized you.”

“. . . What?”

“Well, she spoke so highly of you.”


	4. 4: Der Mentsch Tracht un Gott Lacht

** 4  **

“I’m not going.” 

The necromancer had set up camp by stringing a sheet of oilcloth between two posts and lying down on the grass, staring up at his little awning with his arms folded behind his head. He kept staring upwards and did not move as he and Alexa spoke. 

“Your presence would be very helpful,” the Amazon grumbled, trying and failing to be patient. 

“And why’s that?” 

“Death and undeath are your areas of expertise.” 

“True. I’m still not going.” 

“It will hasten opening the eastern road. Every day, the man you’re chasing gets farther and farther away from you.” 

He chewed his bottom lip. After a few moments’ silence, he muttered, “No. I won’t. I . . . I can’t.” 

“You’re afraid.” 

“Oh, you really are a brilliant detective, your majesty. Yes, I’m afraid. I’m  _ terrified. _ And your appeals to heroism and legendary derring-do and all that nonsense won’t work on me because I know exactly what I am, and what I am is a coward. I’m going to lay here and cower as befits a coward.” 

“So you’re just going to lay here, stewing in your own fear, doing nothing?” 

“I suspect that if I lay here for long enough, I’ll start to decompose. It sounds rather nice.” 

“Hmmph. Some man you are.” 

“I believe I just said that appealing to my better nature won’t work on me, as I haven’t got one. And some man I am, indeed; you and I were born with the same equipment, and you’re a valiant warrior while I’m a craven, and yet you’re a lovely maiden and I’m clearly not, so there must be a bit more to it than that, don’t you think?” 

She almost smiled. “You’re one of the crudest and least courteous people I’ve ever met, but I’ll admit that you can be clever when the notion strikes you. You amuse me.” 

“I’m glad you appreciate my wit; it’s more or less the only thing I have going for me. That, and my adept grasp of sorcery, and these dashing good looks.” 

“You should come with us.” 

“Oh, you’re not going to leave this be, are you? Why don’t you fuck off and go bother someone else? Go bother the Zakarumite; the two of you seem about equally brainless.” 

“Hmm. How does your order feel about one of their adepts being a craven who flees from his duty?” 

“I’ve never fled from duty in my life, on account of I’ve never taken any on. I am one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world, the youngest initiated black priest in a hundred years, and I’ve earned the right to be a craven if it pleases me, which it does.” 

“I think I know the real source of your reluctance, Dulas Xul. Let me tell you this: You owe it to her. For all that she meant to you, you owe it to her to do the right thing.” 

“Oh, fuck off. And  _ fuck you _ for trying to use that on me.” 

“You’re upset because you know I’m right.” 

He sighed. “I . . . can’t. I can’t look at her face again, especially not now. I can’t.” 

“Because you’re a coward.” 

“As we’ve established.” 

“Hmm. I have one more argument I’d like to try on you.” 

“Oh, this should be riveting. Enthralling, even. I can’t wait.” 

“You seem to take a lot of pride in your faith.” 

“’Faith’ is a loaded word to use for a deeply mistheistic religion, but you’re not wrong. I am a black priest of Rathma; my charge defines me.” 

“I’m no scholar, obviously, but I think that the abomination in the monastery graveyard is an affront to the Balance. And I think that such an affront to the Balance demands correction. If only there were a necromancer here to look into it.” 

Dulas Xul turned and looked at her for a long moment, stewing in conflicted rage. At last, he sighed and began to reluctantly get up, grumbling, “Alexa, daughter of Xaera, I want you to know that I hate you. I want you to know that I hate you more than I have ever hated anyone in my life.” 

“So long as it gets you off of your arse.” 

As they headed toward the front of the encampment, Alexa gave him a sly look and said, “You know, I spoke with Zakarus earlier. He said you tried to proposition him.” 

“Did he? I thought he didn’t know what I meant.” 

“Oh, he hadn’t a clue; he’s a sweet fool. It just pleases me to know that you and I have got at least one thing in common.” 

“Oh?” 

“I’m mostly a woman who prefers dogs, but I’ve met a few halfway-decent cats from time to time.” 

“Nice to know you’re a woman of culture. I’ve never seen any sense in limiting myself; at the end of the day, a hole is a hole is a hole.” 

She slapped him on the back of the head. “I finally found one nice thing to say about you, and you still managed to find a way to ruin it. You’d be fascinating if you weren’t so unbearable.” 

“I am what I am and I’ve never pretended to be anything else.” 

“What you are is a pig.” 

“And a coward; don’t forget.” 

Alexa sighed as they reached the front of the encampment where Zakarus, Kashya, and Fiona waited for them. Looking away from the necromancer, Kashya said, “Your assistance in this matter is most appreciated, outlanders. Sister Fiona has agreed to lead you through the wilderness. If you leave now, you should reach the cemetery well before sunset.” 

“I’m honored to aid my cousins in this,” the Amazon said. “Diablo’s minions will learn to fear my bow.” 

The paladin grinned in anticipation. “I’m honored to help as well, my lady. By the Light, this sounds like welcome work.” 

Dulas Xul and Fiona rolled their eyes in unison. The Rogue gestured to the moors beyond the gap in the palisade and said, “We shouldn’t waste any time. If you’ll follow me.” 

Fiona led them out onto the moors as the shadows lengthened around them. The three outlanders looked around with care and walked quietly with their weapons close, but when they were a few dozen yards down the road, Fiona slung her bow over her shoulder and said, “The devils in the wilderness 

rarely approach so close to the wall, and we shouldn’t be in peril until we’ve passed by that cottage up ahead there. We’re safe for now, or close enough to it. Which is convenient; I wanted to talk to you outlanders.” 

“What would you like to know?” Alexa asked. 

“You there, the Rathman sorcerer. You knew Blood Raven.” 

Dulas Xul sighed. “Well, I don’t believe I ever said that.” 

“Don’t play dumb with me, outlander. The way you can’t look Sister Kashya in the eyes, the way you broke down as soon you heard her name; it’s obvious. Who was she to you?” 

“I would so much prefer not to talk about that.” 

“Well, you’re going to.” 

“Must I?” 

“It would be such a shame for you to have some sort of accident, out here in the wilderness where no-one can help you. Damned shame.” 

“Oh, fine. This . . . this isn’t my first trip to these lands. My father, Dulas Karnath, was a far-traveled man, and he would take me with him on his journeys sometimes, and I passed through Eastgate Keep once before. That was just before my initiation, so about two years ago, maybe three. While we tarried in Eastgate, talking with your Sisterhood’s priestesses, I made the acquaintance of Sister Blood Raven, and the two of us got to be . . . very good friends.” 

Fiona winced. 

“We kept up a correspondence over the years, but of course the Necropolis is a long, long way from Eastgate, and I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m not an easy man to be . . . very good friends with. We fell out of touch. But, about six months ago, she wrote me one last letter. Wrote me to tell me that her Sisterhood was sending her to Tristram.” 

“Wait. You were at Tristram?” 

“Oh, you make it sound so dramatic. Khanduras is a long, long way from Kehjistan, and the battle under the cathedral was nearly done by the time I arrived. I only accompanied them on their next-to-last delve into the labyrinth, and I never made it near to the Hellmouth. That was fortunate, in retrospect, but I was certainly not very happy about it at the time.” 

“Oh, I don’t believe that for a moment,” Alexa said. “You’re telling me that you, of all people, sought to do battle with Diablo under Tristram?” 

“’Sought to’ being the operative phrase here. Listen, Askari: Have you ever been in love?” 

“I have.” 

“Then you’ll understand that I was mad with it. Senseless. Obviously I never would’ve even considered doing something so monumentally stupid if I’d been using my brain, but that was not the part of my anatomy doing the thinking. Lucky for me, they were doing the same.” 

“And what does that mean?” 

“They . . . well, they ditched me.” 

“They what?” 

“The Vizjerei summoner opened a portal back up to town, for one last supply run before we made our assault on the Hellmouth. We repaired our equipment, replenished our stores, and resolved to spend one last night indoors. I awoke the next morning to discover that they’d returned to the labyrinth during the night and shut the portal behind them. I next saw them when they emerged a day and a half later. In order to protect me, they’d tricked me. And a fat lot of good it did them.” 

“And that was when you noticed the shadows hanging over them.” 

“Everyone noticed; they were inconsolable. I tried, Mother knows I tried as best as I was able, but Blood Raven had long since ceased wanting anything to do with me, and Aidan . . . Well, I would prefer not to talk about Aidan. In fact, I’d prefer if none of you ever mentioned any of this ever again; I am entirely too sober to be having this conversation.” 

“So you really did know her,” Fiona said. “You . . . you have my sympathy, outlander.” 

“Thank you. Now, if we’re quite done, I would like to stop talking about this.” 

“Forgive me,” the paladin broke in, “but how do we know that you didn’t carry some shadow with you out of that godless place? No offense, but you act like a man beset on all sides by demons.” 

“A seasoned warrior can’t tell the difference between supernatural and mental demons? I’m not possessed, Zakarumite, I am quite mundanely traumatized. You’d be, too.” 

“. . . Oh.” 

“I’ll forgive you if you buy me a drink.” 

“I have one more question, Rathman,” the Rogue said. 

“Oh, Hells. And what?” 

“When we get to the cemetery, do you think . . . do you think that you will have the fortitude to help us do what is necessary?” 

"At times I surprise myself, but I wouldn’t count on me.” 

*** 

After an hour or so of walking, the moor gave way to a wide, rolling plain, and there Fiona stopped them and said, “Here we pass into lands where the corruption dominates, and it’s unlikely we’ll go much farther without facing some sort of challenge, but our destination is close. The road to the northeast will lead to you to Eastgate Keep if you walk it for a day or so. The road southeast leads to the cemetery, and we can be there in about an hour.” 

The paladin drew his sword and surveyed the road ahead of them. “What is it that we’re likely to be facing? If you know any more details.” 

“The scouts said that Sister Blood Raven has risen from death, and that she’s using whatever dark power compels her to animate the bones around her. She seems to be building an army of our dead. And all of this was some hours ago, so there’s no telling how many she has; we may be facing a warband, or a small army.” 

“I think the four of us can handle it. You two are stout warrior-women, and the Rathman and I each have some expertise in dealing with the walking dead.” 

“The three of you are very good friends to have today, that much is true, but I wouldn’t discount Blood Raven so lightly. She was second only to Kashya in martial prowess, and she played her part in defeating the Lord of Terror himself. She was a terrible foe when she was alive, and it may be that whatever darkness took hold of her has only made her stronger.” 

From the rear of the group, Dulas Xul sighed, examined the ground in front of him, and muttered, “Fiona . . . ah, Fiona, can I ask you something?” 

“Of course.” 

“What, um . . . What happened? To her. I . . . I have to know.” 

“When she returned to us, she was diminished, as though the battle under Tristram had aged her half a lifetime in a few weeks. She wouldn’t eat, drink, or sleep, and she spoke little. One night, Kashya finally got her to lie down to sleep, and she . . . didn’t get back up. She further diminished, like she had some wasting sickness, until she passed away. It was while we were preparing her funerary rites, preparing to take her to the Monastery graveyard, that the attack came in the night. We managed to hold the keep, even against the Maiden of Anguish herself, but then we found ourselves attacked from within by our own Sisters, driven mad by some devilry, and we found that . . . we found that Sister Blood Raven no longer rested peacefully. And here we are.” 

The others gave Fiona solemn, sympathetic looks, and Zakarus said, “I’ll tell you this, Fiona of Eastgate: Before the sun sets, I will put an end to this devilry.” 

“Thank you, outlander. Now, let’s get moving; we shouldn’t waste any more time.” 

They formed a marching file with Fiona leading the way and Alexa watching the rear. Signs of desolation were all around them; ransacked abandoned farmsteads, piles of ash and torn-down walls, a reek of rot and death and smoke filling the air. They couldn’t see the source under the light of day, but there was enough smoke to cast the plains into twilight. Dulas Xul walked with his head down and his bottom lip clamped firmly between his teeth, Alexa and  Zakarus seemed to relish the battle ahead, and Fiona observed the road before them with sad eyes and a blank, emotionless expression, her shoulders sagging just enough to notice. 

They hadn’t gone far before a war-cry came up from behind a  copse of birch trees up ahead and Alexa and Fiona froze in unison, each nocking an arrow. Dulas Xul drew his dagger, and  Zakarus held up his sword and shield, and a band of twenty screaming wild-women came running towards them out of the trees, spears at the ready. The archers did good work, sending shafts into the charging warband with impressive speed, and their shots flew true; when the maddened Rogues closed the gap, only twelve of the twenty remained.

Zakarus bellowed a war-cry of his own and charged into his foes, his sword shimmering with divine power. They drove their spears into his mail and most of the strokes bounced off as if their points were blunted. The sword sang as he swung it, and when his strokes connected, their corrupted flesh seemed to flee from the blade carving through it. Dulas Xul ran.

Rather than running away, the necromancer pivoted and scampered behind the blood-maddened Rogues, over to where two lay dead with arrows in their chests. He waved his dagger over them, and their dead flesh melted away like snow in the sun, and their bones began to rearticulate. With a horrible clattering sound, two skeletons rose up out of the puddles of liquifying detritus and went to join  Zakarus in the melee. 

The necromancer kept running to the next corpse, and from it he pulled up shafts of bone that seemed to orbit around his head as he charged into the fight himself, stopping a spear’s length short of the enemy. He hovered around the edge of the fighting, casting shafts of bone into his foes like javelins. The whole conflagration lasted perhaps a minute or two before all was quiet again; Dulas Xul and the archers were unscathed, while  Zakarus looked not much worse. He laid a hand on a rent in his mail and whispered a prayer, and the bleeding stopped at once, and he pronounced himself fine.

Dulas Xul stood flanked by two articulated skeletons, looking well pleased with himself. Alexa took little notice, but  Zakarus and Fiona both looked at him dubiously. The paladin shook his head in derision and turned away, but Fiona sighed and said, “Outlander, I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Those bones used to be inside of my friends.”

“Well, they aren’t using them at the moment.”

“It . . . it upsets me, necromancer.”

“I understand that, and you have my sympathy. But, given what we seem to be walking into, I believe that some assistance is in order. I’ll dismiss them if it really troubles you so much, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

The Rogue shook her head. “I can’t fault your logic, I suppose. You can keep them. I just . . . By the Eye, these are terrible times I’ve found myself in.”

“They certainly are. You, ah . . . you have my sympathy. I understand.”

“Hmm. Yes, outlander, I suppose you do. Thank you for that, and thank you for coming with us.”

Alexa rolled her eyes.  Zakarus looked as though he was about to speak, but looked down and said nothing.

***

Fiona led them up to the cemetery just as the sun began to sink into the west, the long shadows giving the trees a grim and otherworldly look, the smoke in the air playing against the dying sun to turn the sky overhead as red as blood. When they came within sight of rows of white marble monuments overgrown with moss and foliage, the Rogue motioned for them to stop and crept ahead by herself, returning a moment later with her eyes wide and her skin white as a sheet. “She’s . . . she’s in there,” she muttered. “Sister Blood Raven and about thirty others, all clustered around the Mourning Tree in the center of the graveyard, not paying much attention to us. I think she isn’t expecting anyone to try and stop her.”

The paladin shook his head. “Thirty monstrosities all packed into one spot like that, and only four of us. Those are long odds.”

“Hopefully the necromancer can shorten the odds a bit once the bloodletting begins. All we can do now is make an assault, and we should do that while we still have some daylight.”

“Try an angular ambush,” Alexa offered. “You and I should sneak around to the left and attack down one of the side avenues. Once we have their attention, the other two will attack from the front.”

The Rogue nodded with approval. “Catch the mass of them in two interlocking killboxes. The undead are too slow to threaten the two of us, and even Sister Blood Raven couldn’t do much with a sword through her chest. That’s a good plan, outlander; I was just about to suggest something similar.”

Alexa smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Shall we get started, then? Night will be here soon.”

The group turned to look at Dulas Xul, who was sitting with his back to a tree and muttering something under his breath, his hands wrapped tight around the leather cord that held his amulet. Listening close, they heard,  _ “. . . grows must wither and die. All dies and rots, and then will nourish the living. This is the Great Cycle of Being. The Protectors of the Balance must stand on the edge of two worlds, accepted by neither, masters of both. All that grows must wither and die. All dies and rots, and--” _

“Rathman,” the Amazon said, “are  you . . . are you going to be able to do this?”

The necromancer sighed and looked up. “Oh, that is an excellent question. Would you prefer the truth, or a lie?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

***

Rank upon rank of Rogues in varying stages of decomposition stood ordered around the great tree in the center of the graveyard, mindless, moaning with a  damnnable , unnatural hunger. Among them, reviewing the ranks, a woman walked back and forth. She was tall and noble, with a bearing that commanded respect, a heavy war bow in her hand, hair the color of blood hanging in mourning braids down to the small of her back. She wore an ox skull over her head in place of a helmet, and her skin was pale as milk, turning black and blue around the joints. 

Dulas Xul and  Zakarus of  Dunncraig waited a few yards off, hidden behind one of the monuments. Dulas Xul kissed his amulet and muttered, “Oh, Mother, even in death she’s radiant.”

The paladin sighed. “I am . . . sorry, Rathman. Truly I am. Not even you deserve this.”

“Mother ward me, Mother guard me, as You encircle the world in Your coils, Mother give me strength, Mother guide my hand . . .”

“I never took you for a praying man, Xul.”

“I am a  _ mis _ theist , not an atheist; the gods are, unfortunately, very real. But the Mother is not a god; She is Sanctuary itself. And, yes, sometimes we have cause to pray to Her. This, I think, is one of those times.”

“I should say so. Listen, no matter what happens next, I’m standing with you. My strength can be your strength.”

“I suppose that that will have to do. If we’re both alive at the end of this, don’t worry about buying me that drink; I’ll buy out the entire bar.”

“Ha! A Knight of Westmarch, toasting victory alongside a necromancer. These are strange days, but I think I would like that, Dulas Xul.”

“I’d like that as well, for some reason. Mayhap we’ll become good friends and I’ll explain to you about cats and dogs.” He sniffed. “Ah, death is in the air.”

“ Quite . This is a godless place, indeed.”

“No, no, you’re not hearing me. Death is in the air, and the air is  _ sweet _ with it. This whole place is one massive bloom of thanergy. I feel . . . powerful. It’s almost pleasant.”

The paladin rolled his eyes and resumed his vigil in silence. A moment later, from up ahead and to the left, two arrows sailed into the crowd of walking dead, and two Rogues fell back to the earth. Blood Raven held up her bow, pointed toward the source of the attack, and barked a command; it sounded like a pale imitation of human speech, or like several voices speaking at once. A cohort of Rogues broke off and shuffled towards the unseen archers.

Zakarus broke from cover and charged into the throng, bellowing a war cry. The pale glow of holy light that had surrounded his sword earlier glowed with renewed fury, chasing away the gloom with blinding white radiance. And, with tears streaming down his cheeks, Dulas Xul followed. The necromancer held his dagger in both hands and drew upon the power of the ground under his feet, enveloping his blade and himself in a sickening green miasma that burned and putrefied the flesh of the undead as he charged into them. He backed off a few feet, just out of reach of the sea of grasping hands and gnashing teeth, and commanded those who had fallen to rise again. To a chorus of rattling bones, they did.

Dulas Xul lost himself in the ecstasy of his newfound strength, matching the paladin for bravery and ferocity, until—he knew not how much time had passed—he looked around and found that he was alone. He stood at the base of the Mourning Tree in the center of the graveyard, with the walking dead some distance away, his skeletons and his friends close enough to hear but not to see. Holding his dagger ready and looking around, he saw that Blood Raven’s army had formed a ring around the tree, cutting him off from the rest of the melee. And he saw that he was not, in fact, alone.

Blood Raven held an arrow at the ready, and her dead eyes watched him down its shaft. Her lips curled up into a smile, and she cooed, “Oh, I certainly wasn’t expecting this. How nice to see a friendly face.”

Dulas Xul channeled power into his hands and into his blade, ready to move, but he stood still and said nothing.

“How  _ nice _ for our paths to cross again like this. So very  _ nice _ . Just like you, Xul; sickeningly  _ nice _ .”

The necromancer’s lip quivered, as though her were about to speak, but the words died in his throat.

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this. I’m going to enjoy this as much as I enjoyed our little trysts in Eastgate when we were young, young and foolish, before you abandoned me. You remember those nights, don’t you? You must think about them all the time. Come join me, Dulas Xul.  _ Join my army of the dead _ .”

Both of their heads snapped to the right as Zakarus’ ever-bellowing war cry was accompanied by crackling arcane energy, and the horde of walking dead noticeably thinned. Blood Raven turned back to the necromancer and growled, “I don’t have time for this. Come join my army, Dulas Xul. In death, we can finally be together. In death, we can rule this land as king and queen, Xul,  _ my love _ .”

The necromancer broke his silence; he laughed. The sound was mad, manic, and full of despair, but it was also full of mockery. He took a step toward her and laughed, “Oh, you are  _ not _ Blood Raven.”

“ Of course I am! Look at me, Xul. You know me. And now I’m here to give you everything you ever wanted, my love.”

“Even if you are her in some sense, even if there is no evil spirit wearing her flesh like a costume, you are not Blood Raven anymore. You see, Blood Raven  _ hated _ me.”

The Rogue sighed and snapped her fingers, and the snap was accompanied by the sound of shuffling feet behind him. He chanced a look and saw that the circle of walking dead had broken, opening a path out of the battle.

“As I said,” the Rogue growled, “I don’t have time for this. For the sake of what once was, I will allow you to do the one thing you were ever inclined to do. Run away, little coward, and stop pretending to be brave.”

Dulas Xul looked at the inviting gap in his enemy’s ranks, and he looked back at the pale, rotting mockery of the face he’d seen in his dreams since he’d first kissed those lips, and he made a choice: He would, quite sensibly, run.

He’d made three long strides and was almost to the gap when he heard, over the roar of battle and the incessant moaning of the dead and Zakarus’ endless bellowing, a scream. And he recognized the sound, or at least its source. It was the Amazon.

“Oh, I  _ hate _ you,” he growled as he slid to a stop.

“Oh, I _ fucking hate you, _ ” he hissed as he spun around and raised up his dagger.

“Do you?” Blood Raven asked, with a mocking laugh. “But you’re such a  _ nice young man _ , Xul!”

“I fucking hate you more than I have ever hated anyone in my life, Alexa, daughter of Xaera.”

“What?”

His hands, his weapon, his entire body crackled with arcane power, and with a desperate cry, he charged.

***

The explosions were certainly a surprise.

The assault began according to plan, but they’d underestimated what the enemy’s superior numbers would mean. First  Zakarus and then the necromancer disappeared into the throng, and though  Zakarus seemed to be doing well for himself, he was only one man. Alexa wended her way around the graveyard, firing arrow after arrow until her arms, shoulders, chest burned with the terrible effort of it, and soon found herself alone and surrounded. She slung her bow and brought up her spear when they came too close, but that too needed distance she no longer had, and soon she was battering the dead away with her bare hands. That was effective enough, strong as she was, but for every foe she beat down, two or three seemed to rise up to take its place. Soon she was grappling, throwing them off of herself like a dog shaking off fleas as their nails and teeth raked her flesh. One of them, clinging to her back, sank its teeth into the meat of her left shoulder, and she howled with agony and surprise.

And that was when the explosions began.

Two of the undead Rogues burst like pustules swollen with corruption, showering those around them with grey and green viscera that burned their flesh and laid them low. Those laid low sloughed off their flesh and rose up again to fight their former comrades. There were more ruptures, more explosions, and over it all echoed the sound of horrible, mad, cackling laughter.

Alexa recovered from the confusion and shouldered her way out of the writhing mass of undead, putting enough distance behind her to make her bow sing again. The fight was still far from equal, but the tide was turning.

After a beat, the Amazon found Fiona again. The Rogue was bruised, bloody, and almost out of arrows, but she grinned at the sudden change in their fortunes and said, “By the Eye, I think he did it. I think he actually did it.”

From the center of the graveyard, at the base of the Mourning Tree, there came a terrible cry of rage and sorrow and agony that paused the fighting as the warriors ignored the grasping hands and gnashing teeth to cover their ears from the terrible, splitting noise. The scream trailed off as a dim, white light, like a bank of fog illuminated from within, rose up over the graveyard, and as the wind carried it away, the reanimated Rogues fell one by one to the ground and did not move again.

Dulas Xul stood in the center of the carnage, leaning against the Mourning Tree. There was an arrow jutting from his stomach, where it had sunk almost down to its  fletchings , but he seemed not to notice; idly, like a man scratching an itch, he pulled the shaft out of his flesh and cast it aside, and he waved his hand over the hole in his vestments and the bleeding ceased at once. Blood Raven’s body lay broken at his feet, with a lance of bone jutting out of the center of her chest.

The other three made their way to him just as he sank to his knees and the haze of miasma surrounding him dissipated. Fiona reached him first, where she knelt at his side, kissed Blood Raven’s forehead, and muttered, “Thank you, outlander. Thank you.”

“I . . . saw her,” he whispered.

“You saw her?”

“After I . . . after I finished it, I saw her spirit leave her body. She was at peace. And she was beautiful.”

“You did the right thing, necromancer, and you did it well. Wherever souls go when they pass, I’m sure she’s grateful.”

“You should . . . you should give her bow to Kashya. It’s a beautiful weapon, and it’s still intact.”

“I will. You’ve done the Sisterhood an incredible service.”

Zakarus arrived next. He threw an arm across the necromancer’s shoulders and said, “You’re an uncanny son of a bitch, but I’ll say this much, man: I’m glad you’re on our side. That was horrifying, but it was incredible. You were like a god.”

“I am an initiated black priest of Rathma,” he muttered, “and I am one of the most powerful sorcerers in Sanctuary. And I would very much like to leave this place and go drink myself stupid.”

When Alexa came up, she did not kneel in the grass with him, but offered him her hand and said, “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

“I think I would like that very much, Askari.”

***

Back in the encampment, the celebration of their victory was a somber affair as the Rogues toasted their good fortune while mourning a beloved friend a second time. Dulas Xul haunted the edges of the festivities, accepting thanks from the Rogues and praise from others with courtesy, but saying nothing and downing one drink after another. When late evening gave way to deep night and people ceased taking any notice of him, he purloined a jug of wine from behind the bar and retired to his little tent against the far wall.

He’d only been alone for a moment when the Amazon loped over and sat down next to him, saying nothing. He took a long drink of wine and slurred, “Oh, Hells, you’re back. What do you want now, your majesty?”

“I’m going to sit here until you fall asleep,” she replied. “Then I’m going to roll you over so you don’t choke to death on your own vomit in your sleep. When morning comes, though, you’re on your own; I’ll certainly be leaving you alone  _ then _ .”

“I’d so much rather you didn’t.”

“You’d rather I didn’t what?”

“You’d be doing yourself and the people of Sanctuary and, especially, me a huge favor if you just leave me here and let me die.”

“I’m certainly tempted to, but I won’t. My mother would be ashamed of me.”

“I suppose we all must keep up appearances, your royal highness.”

“Please don’t fucking call me that. You know my name.”

“Alexa.”

“Thank you.”

They sat together in silence for a while, and she thought he’d finally fallen asleep until he stirred, took another drink, and said, “ Alexa . . . Alexa, can I ask you a favor?”

“Name it.”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“ Stop . . . helping me. Just let me die. Please.”

“No, I don’t believe I will.”

“Oh, fuck you. You’re of no use to me, then.” He threw himself to the ground dramatically, splayed his arms and legs out, and groaned, “Oh,  Mother , why does  _ everything _ bad always happen to  _ me _ ?”

Alexa started to admonish him for being melodramatic, then reflected that it was likely a genuine complaint. “You have had a rough go of it, necromancer. You have my sympathy, for whatever that’s worth.”

“I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t save  _ anyone _ . She didn’t want me, she cast me out, and honestly, I don’t  fucking care; it hurt, but unrequited pining is for poets and schoolboys. I thought . . . I thought I’d be saving her by just letting her go. And yet, here we are.”

“I am sorry, Dulas Xul.”

“Him, though . . . Him, I really thought I could save. And I thought he cared for me as I did for him. No, no, he  _ did _ care for me, or at least he did before. Before. But it doesn’t fucking matter now. Everyone’s dead, dead, dead, or worse.”

The Amazon couldn’t make sense of his ravings, but chose not to ask for clarification. After another moment’s silence, he reached out, grabbed her hand, and slurred, “You should leave. You should leave while you still can.”

“What?”

“Everything I touch turns to shit, and everyone who gets close to me dies. You should leave now while you’re able.”

“I can’t leave until Eastgate is reopened.”

“Well, we should hurry that project along, then. Before I curse you with whatever dark cloud has settled over my life.”

“I’ve never run away from anything in my life, necromancer.”

“Then you’re a damned fool, and it’ll be your own damned fault when fate catches up with you.”

“I have an aversion to running away from people, even if they are crude, discourteous, tasteless, lecherous black magicians and drunkards.”

“Oh?”

The Amazon surveyed the pitiful little man splayed out in front of her for a long, quiet moment, then huffed and said, “Oh, fuck it. Sure.”

“Oh?”

“When I was young . . . Certainly no-one expected or intended for me to know it, young as I was, but children are more perceptive than adults give them credit. You’ve traveled here and there, you’ve heard stories, you know a thing or two about Askari customs. Even when I was little, I could tell that my mother was terribly disappointed to have had a son.”

“Oh.”

“A few years later, she was overjoyed to find out that she did have a daughter after all. But, as wonderful as that was, it carried a peculiar note of bitterness. It told me that I had been right. That my mother’s love was conditional.”

“Oh, my.”

“Indeed. And for the greater part, our people were happy to share in my joy. For the greater part, there was celebration at the coming of Alexa, daughter of Xaera. Most, but not all. I had a  difficult few years , Dulas Xul. Being honest with myself and the world cost me some people who were very close to me. And  so I prefer not to run from people, difficult though they may be.”

“Hmm. I . . . don’t know what to say, really.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Just accept it.”

“No, no, I do know what to say. Thank you, Askari.”

“Huh?”

“Thank you for telling me that. I know it must be a sore subject.”

Alexa smiled. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? You give an answer, I give an answer.”

“Ha! I suppose. But, ah . . . I do have one question.”

“Yes?”

“Why me? I’m nothing to you; I'm just some stranger you found in the wilderness. And I said earlier, I have no illusions about what I am, and let’s be honest with ourselves: What I am is an unpleasant and troublesome piece of shit.”

“Hmm. Can I be honest?”

“Please.”

“I don’t know. I have no idea. Perhaps I feel bad for you, or perhaps you’re some sort of novelty. Either way, we seem stuck with each other, at least until Eastgate is open.”

“Ah, I’ll take what I can get, I suppose.”

“And now I get to ask you a question.”

“Oh, Hells.”

“Earlier today . . . What made you do it? What gave you, of all people, the courage to face such a terror as that? Any warrior could’ve baulked at the prospect of facing Blood Raven, and you had every reason more, and you’re a coward on top of all that.”

The necromancer sat up and studied her for a moment, and the moment dragged on into awkwardness as his eyes bored into her as though he were staring at her very soul. He took a long drink of wine and muttered, “I don’t know.”

“You are a terrible liar, Dulas Xul.”

“Yes, I suppose I am. So I’ll fall back on one of my old chestnuts: I’m not going to tell you.”

“You wish to spare yourself the pain of it?”

“No, no. Not me. Not me.”

“What does that mean?”

The necromancer did not reply. As Alexa sat waiting for an answer, he slumped facedown into the grass and began to snore.


	5. 5:  Reunion Tour

** 5 **

“ So what can I do  ya for, stranger?” the barman asked, giving the man in the hood and cowl a friendly wave.

The stranger, his face obscured behind the black hood, groaned at the sound of the barman’s voice. “Salted pork,” he muttered. “Pot of warm ale. Two eggs.”

“Pickled eggs, or....”

“Two raw eggs, if you have them.”

“What in the world do you want a pot of ale and two raw eggs for?”

“Because, every time you speak, it feels like you’re trying to pull my brain out of my nose. Do you want my money or not?”

With a shrug, the barman handed over a pot of warm ale, a piece of salted pork, and two raw eggs. The hooded man thanked him profusely but quietly and disappeared back into the encampment without another word.

With his treasures safely in hand, Dulas Xul retreated back to his tent and the shadow it cast. His extremities were numb, his mouth tasted like death, he carried a sickly reek around with him like a miasma, and—most of all—his head throbbed in agony with every beat of his heart. All things considered, the previous night had been reasonably tolerable.

He’d only just sat down on the grass under the lovely, welcoming shadow when he spotted the Amazon approaching him. He rolled his eyes, winced at the monumental effort of it, and hissed, “I have decided to name a boil on my arse after you. It, too, bothers me every time I sit down.”

The Amazon squatted in front of his tent, smirked, and asked, “So are we having a fun morning?”

“I see you fail at keeping the simplest of promises.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t remember much of last night, but I do distinctly remember you telling me that you’d be leaving me alone in the morning, and yet here we are. Now, please stop making that noise.”

“What  noise ?”

“That damnable racket that comes out of you every time you open your mouth.”

The necromancer cracked one egg and then another into his pot of ale, pinched his nose shut, and swallowed the entire concoction in one great gulp. He coughed, gagged, sighed with relief, and said, “Ah, better, better. Now I feel almost alive again.”

“What does that do?”

“I haven’t a damned clue, but it works. Now, please, leave me alone and let me rot in peace.”

“Why do you drink so much, Dulas Xul?”

“Oh, for my health. You see, there was once a  Skatsimi alchemist who hypothesized that, because the liver cleans the blood, it absorbs evil spirits and negative energies as well. So I’m morally attuning myself by punishing the seat of evil in the body.”

“The way you carry on is going to kill you eventually. You must know that.”

“Oh, really? Do you promise? Mother, that sounds  _ delightful _ . I hope I won’t have to wait too much longer.”

“Why do you drink so much, Dulas Xul?”

“Because people like you keep asking me stupid questions. Now, what the fuck do you want from me?”

“The Rogues may have some more work for us later. I spoke to Warmatron Kashya when I awoke and she told me that Akara and her priestesses are planning something. Also, Fiona will be joining our little adventuring troupe as our pathfinder, since none of us are local to the area.”

“Well, that’s wonderful for you and the Zakarumite, I suppose. Doesn’t concern me.”

“I thought you’d say that. But, after our conversation last night, I’ve come up with a little theory I want to test.”

“Oh?”

“I intend to make the Rogues’ troubles my pet project. It would make me a living legend, and my name would be whispered like a killing word around the council-fires from  Philos to Tran Athalua. I’ll be flying from deadly peril to deadly peril, and I may not be up to the task. I may not survive.”

“Well, I don’t see how that concerns me.”

“Neither do I, but I think we both know what choice you’re going to make.”

“The hell does that mean?”

She winked. “We’ll see. For my part, I look forward to spending more time with Fiona; I know the two of you haven’t spoken much, but she’s lovely. And, you know, the paladin should be up and about by now. I suspect he’ll be searching for breakfast.”

“And why do I care about the  Zakarumite’s morning itinerary?”

“Oh, no reason.”

The Amazon got up and walked away, looking well pleased with herself. Dulas Xul sat in the shadows nibbling his salted pork until the pounding inside of his skull started to quiet down, went to the well on the other side of the camp to wash the drunk off of his face, and returned to the mess tent in search of a proper breakfast. The barman gave him a knowing look and asked, “Feeling a bit better, are we?”

“We’re getting there. What’s on offer for today?”

“Nothing special. Just a bit of stock broth.”

“Well, is it hot?”

“Of course it’s hot.”

“Then it’s perfect. One of those, please.”

“Right away, friend."

Xul accepted his bowl of broth with gratitude and took a seat alone at the far end of the makeshift bar, but he hadn’t been alone for long before  Zakarus arrived. The paladin sat down beside him, squeezed his shoulder, and said, “Ah, here’s my strange new friend.”

Dulas Xul turned to examine him. The paladin was rugged and strong, built for war in a way that the necromancer certainly wasn’t, with bright, kind eyes and a shaggy brown beard. The beard was thin and patchy in a perfectly diagonal line from  Zakarus ’ temple down to the corner of his chin; a dueling scar.

Without waiting for a response, the paladin addressed the others sitting under the mess tent, bellowing, “Now, this man here is a warrior if I’ve ever seen one. He may not look like much, but he fights like a cornered wolf.”

The necromancer examined his soup. “I so very much wish you wouldn’t do that, Zakarus.”

“And why not? A man deserves recognition for his accomplishments.”

“I prefer to remain unnoticed. I already stick out like a sore thumb around here as it is, and now they’re going to . . .  _ perceive _ me. Look at me with their eyes. It’s unbearable.”

“As you like it, Rathman. It is true, though; by the Light, I’m glad you’re on our side.”

“A black priest is a good friend to have,  Zakarumite . For your part, all of your unnatural extraplanar  angelry is effective if nothing else.”

“And that’s high praise coming from the likes of you. You know, I noticed you having quite a fun morning earlier.”

“Twas a perfectly normal morning, for a man of my exciting and freebooting lifestyle. Why do you talk so fucking much?”

“Oh. Should I not, friend?”

The necromancer considered him for a moment and gave him the barest hint of a smile. “Ah,  nevermind all that. As I said, I don’t enjoy being the center of attention, but feel free to prattle on if you’d like. Never thought I’d say this about a damned Zakarumite, but your presence is . . . disarming, somehow.”

“Glad to hear it. Now, could I ask you about some things?”

“If you must.”

“You call the power of the Light unnatural. That seems, I don’t know, a bit  hypocritical coming from a practitioner of your art.”

“Hells. Where is it that you believe your power comes from, Zakarus?”

“Well, from the High Heavens.”

“ _ Precisely _ . That’s as unnatural as it gets. My power comes from Sanctuary itself, and from the Great Cycle that defines life and death on Sanctuary; there are no unwelcome extraplanar forces involved. To my mind, any power that draws upon either the High Heavens or the Burning Hells is equally unnatural, unwelcome, and, most of all, perilous. Death is a part of life, and that makes death a friend you can trust.”

“Hmm. I can’t say as I agree, but that is an interesting perspective. To be honest, I thought that the black priests of  Rathma were diabolists of some kind.”

“Your miseducation isn’t exactly surprising, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve nothing to do with demons; demons are meddlesome tyrants who insist on imposing themselves upon planes of existence they weren’t invited to. They’re almost as bad as angels.”

The paladin laughed. “You know, maybe religion and philosophy are heavy topics of conversation for such a new friendship.”

“A strange friendship we’re forging here; me, the abominable diabolist schmoozing with a witch-hunting fanatic. But of all the Zakarumites I’ve ever met, you are by far the least terrible.”

“And that’s high praise coming from you. But, as I said yesterday, I am a Knight of  Westmarch ; the coming of the Mad King to  Khanduras was rather upsetting to the unity of the church. Whatever horrors you’ve seen in the east, I would prefer to have nothing to do with all of that.”

“Hmm. You said you’re from Dunncraig; that’s far in the west, isn’t it? Near Kingsport?”

“Aye.”

“If you ever do make it to  Travincal , I think it’ll be a very enlightening experience for you. Being who I am and coming from where I’m from, I have a hard time associating your faith with anything other than the Crusaders and Inquisitors and the Hand of  Zakarum , may they rot in piss, the murderers.” 

“You’ll get no argument from me, necromancer. As I said, my order can’t help but question the wisdom of those who sent us such a monster as the Archbishop Lazarus.”

“You’re smarter than you look, then. What a funny little troupe we’ve put together here; a paladin, a necromancer, and an Amazon. Sounds like the setup to a joke.”

“Ha! What do you think of the Amazon, anyway? She seems a remarkable woman.”

Dulas Xul shrugged. “She’s an Amazon; they’re all much the same as each other. Tall, beautiful, strong as an ox, frigid as the Frozen Sea. Our Amazon is at least somewhat unique.”

“Unique how?”

“Oh, has she not told you?”

“I don’t think so; she doesn’t talk about herself overmuch.”

“Forget I said anything, then. Enough to say that Alexa, daughter of Xaera has led a very eventful life.”

“Speaking of the Amazon, though, I did want to ask you something. What was all that nonsense the two of you were spouting about cats and dogs yesterday?”

“It’s a euphemism.”

“For what?”

“Well, now I’m put in an interesting position. Taking a chance when each of us means nothing to the other is a small matter; but now that we’ve made peace, the idea of making a fool of myself in front of you actually means something.”

“You’re not talking sense, man.”

“Ah, forget I said anything.”

“No, tell me. I feel like the butt of some joke no-one's explaining.”

The necromancer sighed. “Well, this was nice while it lasted, I suppose. Listen; you know how it’s said that men prefer dogs and women prefer cats?”

“Seems a silly thing to draw distinctions about, but yes.”

“It  _ is _ a silly thing to draw distinctions about. Like I said, it’s a euphemism, and it happens that I’m a man who appreciates dogs and cats more or less equally.”

“Are you . . . saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I’m saying you’re reasonably tolerable for a  Zakarumite , and that you have a rugged face and strong arms and kind eyes.”

The paladin watched him for a long and painfully awkward moment, then smirked, held up his bowl of broth in a toast, and said, “Well, Dulas Xul, I already gathered you were a very strange little man.”

“ So I’ve been told. I appreciate you not making a fool of me, at least.”

After a moment’s hesitation,  Zakarus put an arm across the necromancer’s shoulders and said, “Well, there’s still plenty of time for that.”

“Oh. Oh, my. You know, Zakarumite, I must point out that being acquainted with me often proves bad for people’s health.”

“A Knight of  Westmarch never backs down from a challenge.”

The necromancer leaned into the embrace, closed his eyes, and muttered, “Well, that’s more or less what he said.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

***

Fiona came to the mess tent to collect them around lunchtime, with Alexa trailing behind her like a puppy. When they found the paladin and necromancer sharing a seat together, Alexa made eye contact with Dulas Xul and winked. The necromancer glared back at her ruefully. 

“Come with me, outlanders,” the Rogue said. “If you still wish to aid us, Sister Akara has another quest for you.”

Zakarus sprung up at once, declaring, “I would love nothing more, my lady. I was born to so challenge the forces of evil.”

Dulas Xul rolled his eyes, but watched the paladin with an amused half-smile as the four of them headed towards Akara’s tent on the far side of the encampment. As they walked, the Rogue and the Amazon loped ahead of the others, and Fiona turned to her and whispered, “Why do you bother about that disgusting little man?”

“Don’t know,” Alexa replied. “Something about him is endearing. Like a mangy stray cat.”

“He’s  _ dreadful _ . I can barely stand the sight of him, let alone the smell.”

“He’s been through a lot.”

“Haven’t we all?”

“Yes, I suppose. I just . . . Well, when we first met, he was basically decent towards me and it endeared him to me.”

“How’s that?”

“He’s a Kehjistani, so he knows something about the goings-on of neighboring regions. He recognized Queen Xaera’s strange child.”

“Ah. Well, at least he’s not  _ completely _ mannerless.” 

“And that’s all I ask.”

The high priestess and  warmatron looked sublimely uncomfortable as the adventurers made their way to Akara’s quarters. Kashya had the grim and stormy look of a commander facing a desperate battle, while Akara looked rather like a courier delivering bad news. The two of them looked back and forth at each other for a beat, and Kashya put her hands on her hips and said, “Even with yesterday’s success, our situation is still dire. With the forces we have available, going on the offensive is still out of the question.”

“How many bows can the Sisterhood muster?” Alexa asked.

“Presently? One cohort. There’s no telling how many died during the fall of Eastgate, but we should assume that the Rogues under  Andariel’s madness can at least match that number, if not exceed it. And their ranks are bolstered by the demons she’s drawn up from the Burning Hells.”

“Those are long odds, indeed. But, as you’ve called us here, I imagine that you have some plan to even them.”

“That we do,” Akara said. “It is clear that we are facing an evil difficult to comprehend, let alone combat. The adepts present here, including myself, know little of diabolism, and we’ve barely enough lore to name this evil, let alone think about how best to exorcise  it. And, as Sister Kashya has said, our martial strength is terrible depleted. There is a man in these lands who is a great sage possessed of profound history and lore, and if anyone could advise us on the best course of action, he certainly could. We feared he was lost to us forever, but the time I’ve spent in communion with the Sightless Eye before its loss has left me with enough prescience to know that he is, in fact, alive. For now.”

“Rescuing this sage and bringing him here sounds like good council, indeed. Who is this man, and where might we find him?”

The two Rogues looked back and forth at each other, each looking as though she were about to speak but dreaded the prospect. At last, Kashya sighed and said, “You outlanders have already done the Sisterhood a mighty service in bringing peace to Blood Raven, and we are already in your debt for that. If you do not wish to take on this errand for us, we will not hold that against you.”

“By  Athalua and Kethryes, I have never backed down from a challenge in my life. Name the task, cousin, and I’ll undertake it.”

“You are very brave, Askari,” Akara muttered, “but perhaps overbold. Here is what needs to be done: Not so far from here, about halfway to the gates of our Monastery, is an ancient circle of stones, a waypoint that can be activated to open a portal to a corresponding waypoint elsewhere in the world. This one, if my lore is correct, is linked to the town of Tristram.”

“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” Xul muttered.

“Sister Fiona will lead you to the Cairn Stones. You must open the portal, journey to Tristram, and find and rescue the Horadric sage, Deckard Cain.”

Alexa stepped forward before any of the others could speak. “I will take on this task,” she said, her voice dripping with regal authority, “and I will complete it, or die in the attempt.”

“As will I,”  Zakarus said. “By my sword and by the Light of Zakarum, we will find this man and bring him here to you, no matter the peril.”

“I hate the both of you so fucking much,” Dulas Xul grumbled.

***

The necromancer sat under his tent with knees tucked under his chin, staring at the ground in front of him and grumbling, “You are both out of your damned minds. This . . . this transcends your usual stupidity. This is suicide. Simply suicide. I’ll not be party to this.”

“No-one is saying you have to come,” Alexa said with a sardonic half-smile.

“You don’t . . . you don’t know what the two of you are asking me to walk into. That place . . . that’s a town on top of an open Hellmouth. You may as well be asking me to walk into the Outer Steppes of Hell. I can’t . . . I can’t fucking do that.”

Zakarus gave him an understanding nod. “No man in Sanctuary would think any less of you for it.”

Dulas Xul’s breathing quickened, and his eyes narrowed, and he whispered, “I can’t . . . I can’t go back there. Please don’t make me go back there.”

“No-one here will force you to do anything,” the Amazon said. “If this task is beyond you, then so be it, and suffer no shame.”

“And yet here the both of you are.”

The paladin looked confused, but Alexa smirked. “So you see our very presence as a kind of compulsion?”

The necromancer glared at her with smoldering anger behind his eyes and growled, “I . . . I want you to leave. Both of you.”

“So that you won’t have to care about us anymore?”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s what you say when you know I’m right.”

“I hate you so very much.”

“And yet.”

Zakarus gave the necromancer a patient smile and rested a hand on his knee. “Dulas Xul, whatever this strange fellowship you and I have forged might be, I’m in no such hurry to cast it aside. I see a tolerable man in here, underneath all of this bluster and caterwauling and badly affected cruelty.”

After a long, tense silence, Dulas Xul returned his eyes to the ground and said, “I . . . don’t want you to leave. Either of you. But you should, both of you, for your own sakes.”

“A Knight of  Westmarch does not back down from danger.”

“Nor did a warrior of Khanduras, nor a Rogue of Eastgate. And you see what a fat lot of good it did them.”

“We are not them, necromancer,” Alexa said. “You think yourself cursed, but ill-luck is not itself a curse. And moreover, if we know what it is we’re up against, don’t you think we’ll be better able to face it?”

“I meant what I said to you, outside of the graveyard yesterday,”  Zakarus added. “My strength can be your strength.”

Dulas Xul smirked. “ Zakarus of Dunncraig, you are strong indeed, and valiant, and a damned fool. I am powerful and cunning and a coward. I think that the two of us together amount to one competent warrior.”

“Ha! I think you’re onto something there. Now, let us settle a few things: The Amazon and I are undertaking this perilous quest, and that much is settled. If we go, you will follow us, though your fear might otherwise fetter you.  So let’s establish now that this is something we are all doing together, in fellowship, and not something anyone is being pressganged into.”

“If I must.”

“And I know we’re flying into the seat of a very peculiar terror for you, but I say again: We will face it together.”

“Well, I would be lying if I said I was happy about any of this, but I think I have little choice.”

“That’ll do,” the Amazon said. “Now come along. Fiona’s been waiting for us this whole time.”

“Oh, I hate you so fucking much.”

“You keep saying that.”

As the three of them headed toward the front of the encampment, she turned back toward him and asked, “Dulas Xul, why do you keep insisting you’re a coward despite evidence to the contrary?”

“I’m merely stating an objective fact.”

“You faced Blood Raven yesterday, and did it practically alone.”

“I had an opportunity to run, you know. And I was going to take it. Just abandon the three of you to whatever fate.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Oh, fucking stop this.”

“Stop what?”

“Being nice to me. I find it vexing.”

***

The wilderness was not kind. Terror’s corruption seemed to hide behind every rock and every tree, to say nothing of bands of mad Rogues and emboldened  Khazra that stalked everywhere, brazenly out in the open. Neither were particularly known for strategizing, and the journey through the wilderness was less perilous than it was tedious, a passage harried by howling bands of beasts recognizable as having once been human. Even with Fiona’s knowledge of the paths ahead, the passage across the plains and through the rocky  Tamoe lowlands took the four warriors the rest of their day, so that the shadows were lengthening and the sun sinking into the west by the time they came to a circle of five standing stones looming before them like the fingers of some great hand under the earth.

To everyone’s surprise, Dulas Xul was the first to approach the circle. Looking it over, he said, “This place . . . this is even more  thanaturgically active than the Rogues’ graveyard. There is a lot of power around these stones.”

“We might as well stop here and wait for morning,” Fiona announced. “This place . . . well, it’s not safe, but it’s as safe as any place can be, and whatever lies on the other side of that portal, it’ll be better to face it under the clear light of day.”

The necromancer nodded. “ That’s . . probably the best we can hope for. How are we meant to open this portal, though?”

“Sister Akara thought that you would know.”

“And why the hell did she think that?”

“You keep saying you’re one of the most powerful sorcerers in Sanctuary or what have you. Can’t you open a portal?”

“No! I am a sorcerer, but not a wizard; I deal in blood and bone and essence, not bending time and space. You want a druid or a Vizjerei summoner or some such thing for a task like that, not a necromancer. I . . . wait.”

“You thought of something?”

“There are five stones here.”

“ So you can count. Congratulations.”

“This place . . . why are these called the Cairn Stones?”

“How should I know?”

“A  _ cairn  _ is a kind of grave; a  _ cairn stone _ is one of the stones used to build one. And there are five . . . Hmm, perhaps your high priestess has even more lore about her than she lets on.”

“Akara is very wise, outlander. She’s our High Priestess for a reason.”

“Hmm. This shape; this isn’t a circle. The stones form a pentagon.”

“Are you going to start making sense?”

The necromancer walked into the center of the megalith, still thinking aloud to himself. “This place would have to date all the way back to the Sin War if I’m right. Five stones, five elements of creation, five coils of the Dragon; earth, air, fire, water, and . . . time.”

He reached out and touched one of the stones, and the cracks on its surface began to glow with a dim inner radiance, forming a series of arcane glyphs. The light died away a moment after he removed his hand, and he said, “Oh, Mother . . . I do know how to open this portal.”

“Well, that’s wonderful,” Fiona replied, rolling her eyes. “So are you going to say what it is you’re whispering about, or keep talking in riddles?”

“Of course, of course. This place . . . I think it’s a place of power for my order. A necromancer raised up these stones, to mark some place of the Mother’s passage through Sanctuary. And if it does date all the way back to the Sin War . . . It could’ve been Kalan, the first  Deathspeaker . Or it could’ve been  Rathma himself.”

“Oh. The wilderness holds many mysteries, and all lands bear the scars of the past, but that’s . . . unexpected.”

“ Quite . And, for my part, I choose not to think about why an ancient necromancer would build a  thanaturgical portal between the Eastgate lowlands and Tristram and then lead me to it three thousand years later. Sounds like some sort of damnable angelic scheming.”

“Sure. Now, let’s set up our camp and pick shifts to keep watch and get settled in. We’re in for a long night, and a longer day tomorrow.”

“We certainly are.”

***

Dulas Xul spoke little as night drew on, sticking close by to  Zakarus as Alexa stuck close by to Fiona. The Rogue and the Amazon talked incessantly, and though the paladin seemed vexed by his companion’s silence, to his credit he made no attempt to break the silence. The necromancer held  Zakarus ’ hand and leaned against him as they sat together, and soon the paladin was snoring, but sleep did not come easily to Dulas Xul. He slept very little under the best of circumstances, and he knew that the night concealed innumerable terrors, and he dreaded the coming day more than he had ever dreaded anything in his life.

With time, the exhaustion of the day’s travel and the warmth and closeness of the paladin combined to lull him into sleep, though little rest came with it.

In his dreams, he found himself standing alone amongst the Cairn Stones under a full moon, though the moon had been dark when he’d retired. He looked around and panicked to find his companions gone, but then laughed aloud when he realized it was a dream.

“And what’s so funny, adept?” came a voice from the darkness. Dulas Xul looked around for its source and saw a human figure approaching out of the gloom. The stranger was hooded and cloaked, like an old friend of his, and he was afraid, but as the figure came closer the necromancer saw that he was of inhumanly massive stature, at least nine feet tall and broad across the shoulders. The stranger looked down at him, and Dulas Xul saw a pair of fierce grey eyes sparkling under his hood.

“I suspect you’re here to tell me something important,” the necromancer said. “What sort of dream-vision are you? Some spirit of this place?”

“Something like that,” the stranger replied, and lowered his hood. The stranger looked much like Dulas Xul himself, gaunt and pale with grey eyes and ghost-white hair, though he was taller, stronger, and seemed to radiate contradictory energies, as though his presence were a blight and boon blended in measure. Dulas Xul gasped and dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead into the dirt.

“Well, some  mistheist you’re turning out to be,” the stranger said, sighing and rolling his eyes. “Get up, adept. On your feet. We bow to no-one.”

“Y-y-yes, Master. What manner of sorcery is this? What has called you to me?”

“You’re wearing a piece of me around your neck.”

“Oh. Yes, I, ah . . . I suppose I am. But why are you here, Master? This . . . oh, Mother, this can’t be good.”

“Indeed. I wouldn’t be wasting my valuable time bothering one of my priests in person—so to speak—without direst need, but here we are. You stand on the cusp of something you can’t even imagine, Dulas Xul. You’re standing at the crossroads of Fate; the decisions you and your new friends make tomorrow and over the next few months will decide the outcome of events that were set into motion millennia before you were born, and whether you succeed or fail, you will rattle the foundations of Heaven. It’s unfortunate that things are coming to a head so quickly, and unfortunate that this has fallen into your lap; it would’ve been better had it gone to Master Ordan, or Kara Nightshadow, or Zayl, or perhaps even dear old Deathspeaker Jurdann has a few adventures left in her before she croaks, or--”

“I get the point.”

“Yes, I suppose you do. But, tell me, Xul: What is your purpose?”

“I protect the Balance, Master. I serve the Great Cycle of Being that sustains the world.”

“Good; straight from my book. Now, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the Balance is seldom disturbed in a series of convenient locations.”

Dulas Xul cringed. “Yes, I . . . I have become acutely aware of that fact.”

“I’m sure you have. You are not the man that this task was supposed to fall to, but you are the one who arrived in the correct place at the correct time, and your commitment to your charge might be enough to sustain you. I’ll tell you this, adept: The world is coming to an end and you can’t stop it. No-one can. Many diverse peoples are going to fail at the tasks the Ancients set for them, the righteous will fall before the wicked, and the Heavens will tremble. If this world is to survive the things that are coming, it will need the defenders of the Balance more than ever. If you can rise up to fulfill your commitment to the Balance, you can play a part in limiting the destruction, and in so doing you can become the greatest adept our order has seen since I walked the world  enfleshed . If you can’t, all is lost.”

Dulas Xul gawked up at the vision of  Rathma with a  gormless look on his face, struggling to process all that he was hearing. At last, he stammered, “You . . . you mention peoples failing to fulfil the duties of the Ancients, and of the world changing. You’re . . . you’re talking about the Worldstone.”

“I am.”

“Oh, Mother. Master, what the fuck is coming?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t make any difference. Now, dawn is almost here, and you have another great challenge ahead of you. Find the courage to face it, and you’ll be fine; or, at least, as fine as anyone can be under the circumstances.”

“Master, I . . . I don’t think I have that courage. If I know anything, I know my own shortcomings, and I . . . I don’t think I have what it takes.”

“My  arse , you don’t. Listen to me, adept: We all have to find sources of strength, wellsprings to draw commitment up from, and you are a lucky man indeed; you have two of them.”

“I . . . oh, Mother. Why do I keep putting myself in these situations?”

“Because you humans are social animals. By the way . . . A  _ Zakarumite _ _? _ Really?”

“In our defense, he is something of a lapsed Zakarumite.”

“I hope so, for his sake. Now, I have delivered my warning and it’s time for you to wake up.”

“Ah . . . one more thing. Master, can I ask a favor of you?”

“I suppose.”

“You, ah . . . You’ve spent your exile dwelling in communion with Her, yes?”

“I have.”

“Um . . . Oh, this sounds foolish coming out of my mouth, but . . . Will you tell Her I love Her?”

“She knows, Xul. Tooth or no tooth, I wouldn’t have been able to pay you this visit if She didn’t know. Now, it’s time for me to go, and time for you to go do the one thing you’re somewhat competent at.”

***

Dulas Xul awoke with a start just as the dawn began to break in the east. He didn’t disturb the paladin, who was still snoring beside him, but he did get the attention of Alexa and Fiona, who sat similarly entangled on the other side of the megalith. The Amazon smirked and said, “Oh, look who’s finally awake.”

“Strange dreams,” the necromancer muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and attempting to wake Zakarus.

“I imagine. We tried to wake you for a shift at watch a few hours ago and you were like a dead man. Were your dreams significant?”

“I . . . don’t remember. I’m left with a feeling of inescapable impending doom and the sense of being beset by some terrible fate I had no choice in, but of course that’s nothing new. I . . . I think I talked to someone I loved very much.” He closed his eyes, sighed, and fiddled with the amulet around his neck. “I need to open this portal.”

“Well, that is why we’re here.”

“No, I mean, I . . . I want to get this over with.”

“Really? Well, that’s unexpected.”

“I mean, I don’t ‘want’ to, but . . . I think I have little choice. You fools will find your way there with our without me, and get yourselves killed.” He elbowed  Zakarus in the ribs. “Mother, I’m not the only one who sleeps like a dead man, it seems.”

“The two of you delight me, necromancer. Like opposites attracting.”

“Such has been the course of my life, Askari. Though in your case it seems that like attracted like.”

Alexa smiled and squeezed Fiona’s hand. Fiona glared at him and grumbled, “And what does that mean, outlander?”

“Nothing untoward; only that the two of you seem alike in many ways. And I know little of you, Rogue, but Alexa, daughter of Xaera is a marginally tolerable person.”

“I thought you hated me,” Alexa said, giving him a shit-eating grin.

“Oh, I do. I hate you and I’m never going to forgive you for this. You, and this great hairy oaf on top of me.”

Zakarus groaned and began to stir. Dulas Xul nudged him again and said, “Get up,  Zakarumite . Time for us to face our doom.”

When the four of them were on their feet, Alexa turned to the necromancer. “Before we begin this perilous leg of our journey, I must ask you: Once you open this portal, what is it that we can expect to find on the other side?”

Zakarus grabbed the necromancer’s hand and squeezed it. Dulas Xul grimaced and examined his boots. “In a word? Hell on Earth. There . . . there is no town anymore, only a blasted wasteland full of abominations drawn forth from the Burning Hells. The evil seems to have diffused all across  Khanduras in the weeks since, but no doubt we’ll face stiff resistance. And it’s . . . perilous. Being around so much evil, it . . . does things to your mind. Take care, lest you end up like me.”

The paladin squeezed his hand harder. The necromancer stood amongst the stones, breathing hard, trying to steel himself, then at last said, “All of you . . . all of you should stand back. I, ah, don’t know what this is going to do. As I said last night, this is not my usual school of magic; I have never opened a portal before.”

The others stepped back. Dulas Xul evened his breathing, studied the stones for a moment, then walked among them from one to another, forming a pentagon. He touched each stone as he passed, and arcane glyphs long hidden by moss and lichen and age began to glow with each touch. When he touched the fifth stone, there was a deafening crack like a clap of thunder and a bright flash of light, and, in the center of the pentagon, the air split open like a seam into a wall of roiling light. The light was the color of blood, and it emitted an otherworldly humming that hurt their ears to listen to.

“Well,” the necromancer announced, “I did it.”

“ So you did,” the Amazon said. “And this will lead us to Tristram?”

“Well, I don’t fucking know. Akara certainly thinks it will, but I suppose there’s only one way to know for sure.”

Fiona shook her head. “If Sister Akara says that this portal leads to Tristram, then Tristram is where it leads.”

“Good enough for me. Let’s . . . let’s get this over with, I suppose.”

Dulas Xul unsheathed his dagger and ran towards the wall of light. When he’d closed half the distance, he froze in mid-stride, clutched his chest, and groaned, “Oh, no. Not this. Oh, Mother, not this.”

Zakarus and Alexa looked back and forth at each other for a beat, then rushed into the portal in unison. Dulas Xul watched them disappear into it and muttered, “Oh, I don’t know why I fucking bother.”

***

Alexa, daughter of Xaera, had never traveled through a portal before, and found the new sensation acutely unpleasant, but she had certainly seen a battlefield before.

The portal spilled her and the paladin out into a heap on a dusty road surrounded by desolation. She could see the remains of what had once been a town, marked by piles of rubble and cinders, and even weeks after its destruction it still reeked of fire and death. Looking around, she exclaimed, “ _ This _ was the town King Leoric chose for his capitol? This little farming town?”

“It was . . . complicated,”  Zakarus said. “The Mad King said much the same himself when he was led here. The true source of this town’s prestige was the old cathedral to the north, which I certainly hope we won’t be going anywhere near. But, take care and be ready; a great evil still lingers here. I can sense it.”

Alexa found that she could sense it, too. She saw nothing but desolation and ruin, but some part of her, her killer’s instincts, could sense some threat lurking in the shadows. The play of the sunlight on the ruins and the shadows it cast looked . . . off, as though the shadows had form and substance and rebelled against the light. Looking over the ruins gave her a headache and invoked some deeper feeling of discomfort, as though she’d committed some great transgression by coming to this place uninvited, and she thought on what the necromancer had told her: That this place was not only dangerous, but  _ perilous _ .

Fiona came tumbling out of the portal a moment later, and Alexa caught her as she fell and helped her upright. The three of them stood there on the road at the edge of the desolation for a while, their sense of dread growing, until Fiona looked back at the portal and asked, “Do you think he’s coming?”

“I certainly hope so,”  Zakarus replied. “Though, if this task is beyond him, I don’t think I could blame him overmuch. I imagine I’ll behave much the same as my necromancer if I ever make it to Travincal.”

“You have a much higher opinion of him than I do, but if facing this is too much for him then we will miss his expertise.”

Only a few more seconds passed before Dulas Xul came tumbling out of the portal. He made an undignified entrance, landing spread out on the ground as though he’d fallen from a great height, but he immediately got up to his feet and brushed the dust off of his robes. In the middle of the motion, he froze, looked around, laughed, and said, “Oh. It’s just as I left it.”

“Do you remember anything that might help us?” the Amazon asked. “This man, this Deckard Cain; do you know where he might be?”

“I haven’t a clue. I spoke with that man a few times, I would recognize him if I saw him, but I have no idea where he might have gone; or, rather, where he might have been put. He liked to stand around the well in the center of town; that’s the extent of my memory.”

“Now that you’re looking upon it again, do you remember anything else that might be of use to us?”

“Not hardly. The layout isn’t hard to guess—it's a small town, just like any other—and as for the abominations that dwell  here . . . it’s likely we’ll come face-to-face with some proper demons today, not just corrupted Rogues and angry  goatmen . Oh, Mother, but I  _ hate _ demons.”

Zakarus put an arm across his shoulders and said, “Well, Xul, I’m glad to know we’ve got that much in common.”

Dulas Xul closed his eyes, gripped the amulet around his neck, and muttered, “All that lives must wither and die. All dies and rots, and will then nourish the living. This is the Great Cycle of Being. The protectors of the Balance must stand upon the edge of two worlds, accepted by neither, masters of both. The Balance is seldom disturbed in a series of convenient locations, and  we . . . we go where we are needed.”

Alexa put a hand on his other shoulder. “It speaks well of you that you found the courage to do this, necromancer.”

“It proves I’m an idiot, that I willingly returned to the place that ruined my life and stole everything away from me. But it’s . . . well, allowing demons to walk in this world unchallenged is the closest thing my religion knows to blasphemy, and you know, it’s said that the black priests of  Rathma rarely die of old age. This will be the end of me, I’m sure, in mind if not in body, but we’re well past running away now. Why, what would poor old  Jurdann say about that?”

“And devoted to his principles as well,” the paladin said with a smile. “Mayhap you are a man after my own heart after all. When we get back to the Rogues’ camp, you’ll have to tell me all about whoever this Jurdann is.”

“I could spend weeks and weeks recounting all the exploits of Deathspeaker Jurdann; she is the Deathspeaker for a reason. But, right now, I believe I have some dying to do.”

Dulas Xul shrugged out of his companions’ embrace, took a few steps forward, and drew his dagger. He held it out in front of him for a moment, cocked his head at it like a confused dog, then rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Oh, Mother. Of fucking course.”

“Something the matter?” Alexa asked.

“Of course, the desolation of demons. This place is dead; utterly dead.”

“Well, isn’t that . . . good? For you?”

“I know you’ve heard the litany I keep muttering to myself; life and death are meant to walk hand-in-hand. In the graveyard the other day, that was a place  _ of death _ , a place full of putrefaction and change and new life, and that is where  thanergy comes from; but this place is . . . sterile.  Thanaturgically as well as morally empty.”

“So you’re powerless here?”

“Well, not quite.”

The necromancer slid his dagger across his left palm, and a red line of blood welled up. He closed his eyes and sniffed, savoring the smell of blood in the air, and as he did his weapon, his hands, his forearms became wreathed in green fire. He smirked, and the fire dimmed but did not entirely go away. 

“There,” he said, “that’ll do. Let’s just, ah . . . try not to take too long.”

***

They skirted around the edge of the ruins,  Zakarus in the front leading with his shield, the necromancer behind him, and the two archers at the rear. They saw nothing but further desolation and a few charred skeletons that Dulas Xul made a point not to look at too closely, but as they moved farther from the portal, they could all feel a palpable sense of dread falling over them, as though some horror that lurked just out of sight was coming slowly closer. After a while, their skulking brought them to a gap in a ruined stone wall with a clear view of the center of the town. They saw their quarry, and they saw the source of their terror.

Hanging over the well in the town square was a gibbet, and within the cage was an old man wearing the grey robes of a scholar. Even from so far away, they could tell that he was in very poor shape, but he at least seemed to be alive. Pairs of articulated skeletons stood at each ingress, holding rotting shields and rusting swords, and in the center of town, clustered around gibbet and the well, were three great hulking devils. The beasts were tall, a few feet taller than the Amazon, broad and thick as bears with knotted muscles rippling under their leathery red and black hides. Membranous bats’ wings jutted from their shoulders, rows of cruel fangs hung out of their bestial maws, and each carried a massive black war axe larger than the paladin’s shield.

The heroes cowered behind the crumbling wall and observed the host with slack jaws and wide eyes. The occupants of Tristram were fewer in number than they’d expected, but far greater in stature. The warriors steeled themselves and looked ahead with iron determination. The necromancer began to hyperventilate.

“Looks like they don’t see us,” Alexa muttered. “For all the good it’ll do us.”

The paladin nodded. “This’ll be a rare fight, indeed. I don’t think the guile and strategizing that served us well the other day will do much good here; any one of these foes could just destroy us in detail.”

“You’re suggesting a direct assault? Against  _ that? _ ”

“Not so much. Your eyes are sharper than mine, Amazon; how far away from us do you think they are?”

“Perhaps two hundred yards. Just within bowshot.”

“Here is my suggestion. I will . . . get their attention. Once that’s done, they’ll recognize me for what I am and come straight here to destroy us. And I think you and your companion could  loose quite a few arrows in the time it’ll take them to clear two hundred yards.”

“I suppose Fiona and I might be able to destroy . . . one of those brutes before they’re close enough to destroy us. But what does that accomplish? Have you ever fought a demon before, Zakarus?”

“Not of such stature as that, no.”

“I have. It took four Askari warriors to bring down one of those pit lords, and we had to bleed for it, and—no offence meant, but it’s true—the three of you are not Askari warriors. These creatures are as strong as they look, and they’re also . . . perilous. As the necromancer has tried to warn us, close proximity to them . . . does something to a human’s mind. I know you can all feel it.”

They nodded, and  Zakarus made a sign across his chest, and Dulas Xul clutched his amulet and muttered his litany.  Zakarus considered the foes in front of them and said, “I am welcome to any and all suggestions.”

“Under the circumstances, your plan is probably the least bad option available to us, but it is going to be a desperate struggle. Hmm. You have the power of the Light on your side, and that’s nothing to sneeze at, and I think that our sorcerer represents an unknown quantity. What say you, Rathman?”

“I  can . . . do a few things,” Dulas Xul replied, “but the three of you will need to keep them busy for a while. I don’t fancy my chances going toe-to-toe with one of those brutes.”

“Paladin, what do you mean when you say you’ll ‘get their attention’?”

“Oh, you’ll see. Are we ready to make our assault?”

“As ready as we can be, I suppose.”

The four of them stood in a circle and faced each other. Fiona grabbed Alexa’s hand and said, “You will be careful, Askari. If you get yourself killed, I’ll kill you.”

The Amazon smirked. “I was about to tell you the same.”

Zakarus took Dulas Xul’s hand, and the necromancer muttered, “I know you’re not a complete fool, so you must be nearly as terrified as I am.”

“Oh, I’m petrified,” the paladin replied with a grin. “I’m just more used to hiding it. But can’t you feel my heart racing with your uncanny prescience?”

“I can do a lot of things like that, but I didn’t want to. Seemed intrusive.”

“Well, you’re a gentleman.”

“No the hell I’m not.”

“You are not,” the Amazon said, resting her free hand on his shoulder. “You are a cowardly, whining, uncouth, boorish little man, and I consider it an honor to fight and die with you.”

Dulas Xul forced a smile. “And you, Alexa, daughter of Xaera, are a pesty, meddlesome, self-important, haughty, spoiled girl, and I am very, very glad you’re here.”

“They say that honesty is a good basis for any friendship.”

“One does hope.”

“And I can’t help but notice that you and I, conveniently, each have two hands.”

“. . . What?”

“Don’t worry about that right now. I say we get started with our bloodletting before the day drags on anymore; and whether we live or die, we’ll do deeds of the sort that bards sing songs about.”

Dulas Xul thought, but did not say, that the characters in such songs very rarely lived. He clutched his amulet and returned to reciting his litany.

Zakarus of  Dunncraig held up his sword and walked out into the middle of the road with his head held high. He faced the assemblage of monsters and whispered a prayer, and his sword began to glow with holy light as it had in their previous battles. The whispered prayer grew in volume until he was bellowing an invocation to the High Heavens. The invocation was answered; the sky parted, and a bolt of light came down from the heavens with a roar like thunder and the same uncomfortable humming sound the portal had made. It smote the ground in the midst of the opposing host, throwing out lesser bolts of light and a shockwave that pushed the three demons back and destroyed many of the ambulatory skeletons. The demons howled with rage, a baleful sound that echoed within their minds and heightened the ever-present pall of fear, and, taking notice of the paladin, they charged, and the earth shook under the heavy tread of their cloven feet.

The devils closed the gap quickly, but it was plenty of time for the Rogue and the Amazon to make their bows sing. Arrows sailed through the air in tandem, piercing their flesh and prompting louder cries of agony. When the devils had almost reached Zakarus, Fiona whispered a word of power under her breath and loosed an arrow that changed in flight, becoming a shard of ice that burst like a clap of thunder on impact, dropping one of the beasts to its knees. Alexa smirked and did likewise, and her arrow burst into flames in the air and bathed the demon in a gout of fire as it sank into its flesh, knocking the beast over. It crashed into the dust like a mountain falling and did not move again.

As the other two came close, Dulas Xul, who’d been cowering behind the ruined wall hyperventilating and clutching his amulet, sprang into action. Though his hands visibly shook, he ran forward, waved his dagger in an arc, and whispered an incantation. The ground between  Zakarus and the demons ruptured and cracked, and spires of bone erupted up from the cracks, forming a wall. One of the demons was caught mid-sprint, spilling over the top of the wall and landing on its face in the dirt with a roar of rage and frustration. The paladin rushed forward, landing a stroke across the demon’s hide as it righted itself, spraying boiling black blood into the dust. Bellowing rage, the demon retaliated, swiping at the paladin with its off hand. He took the stroke on his shield, and the force of it sent him reeling backwards.

Dulas Xul yelped. He ran, shrieking, into the melee just as the demon began to raise its axe, and he sprinted in front of  Zakarus and slashed at the slow, ponderous beast with his dagger before rushing back out of range. It was a small cut, but as soon as the dagger pierced its hide the wound began to fester and putrefy as though weeks of lingering infection were compressed into half a moment. It froze mid-swing and howled again, this time in agony, as two arrows pierced its neck and it collapsed onto the road.  Zakarus pulled himself to his feet, looked back at the necromancer, and grinned, giving him a mock salute. Dulas Xul’s hands shook violently and his face was a mask of terror, but he attempted to smile back.

From behind the wall of bone, they heard the third demon roar, and his war-cry was accompanied by another, greater roaring as of a massive whirlwind sweeping down upon them. The air grew hot, and the wall of bone crumbled under a gout of flame. The demon lurched forward with two  great , lumbering steps and opened its massive, toothy maw; fire billowed out of it, bathing the road before it in a blistering inferno. Alexa and Fiona both dove out of the way of the blast.  Zakarus raised up his sword and shield and shouted another prayer, shielding both him and the necromancer in an aura of light that the flames passed to either side of, like a stone in a stream. The heat was still unbearable, and maintaining the aura was a clear strain on the paladin, and he began to waver as the demon raised up its axe to strike him down. 

Shrieking with terror again, Dulas Xul pointed his dagger forward and barked a word of command, and a cloud of putrid green miasma shot out of it in a stream, parting the flames. The miasma struck the demon’s face, not hurting it overmuch, but breaking its concentration, and the inferno died away as the axe came crashing down. The two men dodged the stroke, and  Zakarus rushed forward, driving his sword up and into the creature’s belly. The necromancer screamed another incantation and the demon that had fallen nearby ruptured, sending two long, cruel shafts of bone into its companion just as another pair of arrows sank into the creature’s neck. Roaring in agony and hemorrhaging steaming black blood, it too fell to the ground and did not move again.

Zakarus of  Dunncraig stopped to even his breathing and collect himself. His heart was still pounding in his chest, the stench of burning hair filled his nostrils, and blisters were rising on his arms, but he was alive, and he felt beautifully alive, high on the rush of adrenaline that always accompanied battle. He looked around and saw that the two archers had made it through the battle unscathed, though the same could not be said for the necromancer. Dulas Xul knelt in the dust, shaking from effort and from nerves, with his left arm hanging limp by his side and his left hand discharging far more blood than such a shallow wound should’ve allowed. The paladin rushed to his side and knelt with him, muttering, “Are you going to be alright, man?”

“I should . . . never . . . have come back to this place,” the necromancer panted. “And I . . . never . . . want to do anything remotely like this . . . ever again. And I loathe all of you for dragging me here. And I am utterly, utterly spent.”

Zakarus took the necromancer’s injured hand in both of his and whispered a prayer. The bleeding slowed, but did not stop, and the paladin gasped from the effort and said, “Hells, it seems I’m spent as well.”

“We will . . . we will both need to work on our stamina, then.”

“Ha! There’ll be plenty of time for that later, I think.”

“Aren’t  Zakarumites more resistant when it comes to fleshly temptations?”

“As a rule, yes, but recent events have got us rethinking how we interpret the teachings of Akarat.”

Fiona knelt down and pushed her way between the two of them. In a few quick movements and without a word, she took a clean bandage from a pouch at her belt and dressed the necromancer’s injured hand. Blood spotted through the clean white cloth, but not much, and it soon abated. 

“It is some good to go into battle with a sorcerer, I suppose,” the Rogue said, begrudgingly. “Thank you, Outlander. We would likely be dead were it not for you.”

“Oh, likewise,” Dulas Xul replied, getting shakily to his feet with  Zakarus ’ help. “You, and the Amazon, and this noble knight I seem to have acquired. I daresay that when we pool our  efforts we might almost be called competent.”

Alexa came up and supported the necromancer’s other side. With a wide grin across her face, she said, “That went better than I could’ve hoped. Defeating one pit fiend is a challenge worthy of a hero; defeating three is the sort of thing bards write songs about. This is still a deed half-done, though; did the paladin’s little attention-getter do for the ranks of undead?”

“Seems so,” Fiona said. “The town seems quiet.”

“Then let’s go collect our old man and be on our way, before more terrors emerge.”

The necromancer laughed. “Oh, I would love nothing more.”

As they walked over to the gibbet and the well, Dulas Xul seemed to recover some of his strength, though his companions could see his  spirits sink. When they reached the town square, he laughed his mad laugh and said, “That pile of rubble there, that was Ogden’s inn. Aidan and I spent a lot of nights there. And there, that trail leads over the river, to Adria’s hut. She was a cunt.”

The old man in the cage looked down at them when they came close and looked as though he wanted to shout, but all that came out of him was a feeble, “Help . . . help . . .”

“That’s why we’re here, grandfather,” Alexa said, breaking away from Xul and coming over. The cage hung only a couple of feet from the ground, and she was able to force it open and help the old man down herself. He was malnourished, dehydrated, all skin and bone and suffering from some terrible wound she couldn’t quite discern. When his feet hit the ground, his knees buckled under him and she only just managed to catch him.

“Thank you,” the old man stammered, “thank you . . .”

“Are you the  Horadric sage, Deckard Cain?”

The old man struggled to speak, but Dulas Xul cleared his throat and said, “Aye, it’s him. As I said, I didn’t know the man, but I’d recognize that magnificent beard anywhere.”

Cain stared at the necromancer as though he’d seen a ghost. Fiona huffed and declared, “Enough of this. Let’s get this man some food and water and deliver him to Sister Akara before hardship wears on him any more than it already has.”

As soon as the words had left her mouth, they felt the earth shake under their feet and heard a terrible, demonic roar, as of the three they’d fought, echo from somewhere to the north. It was followed by another, and a third, and more and more.

“Yes,” the necromancer said, his face contorting in terror again, “there is the, ah, the matter of the cathedral still. And the Hellmouth. I think we should, ah, go back to the portal. Now.”

***

They made it back to the Rogues’ encampment around sunset, whereupon Akara declared that the newly-acquired Deckard Cain required healing and rest, and that they could wait for morning to interrogate him. That pleased the necromancer well enough; he was finding himself short on words and unbearably sober.

As before,  Zakarus did not press him on his silence, but the paladin did watch him like a hawk as they wound down for the evening and  and encourage him to eat rather than drink. Xul consented to be fussed over, though his hands shook terribly and the screaming in his mind did not abate.

When evening drew on and they were both weary,  Zakarus took his hands in both of his and said, “Dulas Xul, it bothers me that you’re so young and it bothers you this much to be sober for a few hours.”

“Is this your Zakarum acetism talking?”

“A bit, perhaps, but I’m more worried for your health. I’ve met barbarians who go under after less wine than you drink every night.”

“It dulls the pain, Zakarus. You’re . . . right, of course, but I’d rather we got into this some other time.”

“As you wish. Both of us are sorely in need of a night’s rest, anyway. And, you know, my tent is much nicer than yours.”

The necromancer grinned. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“Well, we were a bit preoccupied, weren’t we?”

“Yes, I suppose we were. I do wonder, though: What would your order have to say about all of this?”

“In truth, probably not much. I suspect I’d get a few sideways glances, but I think even they would be more scandalized by your badge of office than what’s in your trousers. As I’ve mentioned, the church is in something of an uproar these days.”

“I’d like to hear more about that, but we can save politics for in the morning. Likewise, the other black priests would give me no end of grief for carousing with a  Zakarumite , but I think that would be the extent of the scandal.” He yawned and got to his feet. “Lead the way, noble paladin.”

As they walked off into the darkness,  Zakarus put an arm across the necromancer’s shoulders and said, “I’m still chuffed, you know, that earlier today you called me your noble knight.”

“Well, that was only after you started referring to me as _ your  _ necromancer.”

“I’m still not entirely sure where this odd fellowship of ours is going, but I daresay we’re onto something good.”

“My sentiments exactly. And, Zakarus of Dunncraig?”

“Yes, Dulas Xul?”

“Kiss me.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

***

Dulas Xul couldn’t sleep. He’d been expecting it, but it was still a disappointment. 

After an hour or so of lying awake staring into the darkness and listening to the paladin snore, he sighed in resignation, disentangled himself from  Zakarus , and pulled his vestments back on. He crept quietly out of the tent and into the camp under the starlight, and the cool night air and bright stars eased his mind a bit as he made his way over to his little oilcloth awning against the far wall, where—if his befuddled memories could be trusted—he still had a half-full jug of wine.

The refreshment was right where he’d left it, and after taking a long, grateful drink he went looking for a good place to sit. He wandered over to the well and saw that he was not alone; the Amazon sat in the grass beside it, looking up at the night sky.

Taking a seat beside her, he smirked and said, “I see you’re trying to force me out of a job, your highness.”

“There are a lot of stars in the sky, Rathman; no one pair of eyes can keep a watch on all of them.”

“True, but you are missing a very important piece of equipment, vital to the task.”

“Oh?”

He offered her the jug. She laughed and accepted it, taking a long drink, and after she’d handed it  back he said, “You know, no-one should be surprised to see me up and about at such an unspeakable hour, but I didn’t expect to find you here. Something’s troubling you.”

“You might say that. But it’s nothing you’d be interested in; more of my foolish heroics. How are things going with the Zakarumite?”

“Well enough. I find myself mercifully tolerated and quite thoroughly ravished. But . . . I am afraid, Askari.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Take a wild fucking guess.”

“Ah. Right.” She sighed and leaned forward, resting her chin on her fist, and said, “Do you really believe that, Rathman? That heroism is all foolish nonsense?”

“Absolutely. Heroism was invented to trick people who should’ve known better into dying for some temporal cause.”

She huffed. “I don’t believe that; I think that’s what you tell yourself to justify your desire for inaction.  But, I won’t lie, a part of me does wish that I did believe that.”

“Oh?”

“I was thinking about exploits today. How we’ve triumphed over great odds, done deeds worthy of songs, with even greater deeds awaiting us on the horizon. I’m getting everything I ever wanted, necromancer. And it’s making me wonder if I’m  _ really _ getting everything I ever wanted. I feel . . . introspective this night, and it’s upsetting to me. I am not normally a woman of great thought.”

“Do you want to talk about it? Thinking great thoughts is one of the two or three skills I possess.”

“I want to triumph over terrible odds and do great deeds worthy of legends, so that I might forge a name for myself beyond my mother’s shadow. A part of me wonders now, though, if it’s not a bit more childish. I wonder, if my name is whispered like a killing word around the council-fires from  Philos to Tran  Athalua , mayhap then I’ll be worthy of my mother’s love.”

“Hmm. Being the daughter of a queen does present unique difficulties along with its privileges, I imagine.”

“It certainly does. And being the son of an Askari queen does so again by half.”

“But you’re no-one's son.”

“I know that, and you know that, but do they? Sometimes I wonder.”

“Hmm. This conversation has gone very far outside of my areas of expertise, but I will say this much: The black priests of  Rathma very rarely die of old age. As such, parents and children are both rare commodities in the Necropolis, and such parents as have children or children as have parents tend to celebrate their bonds. My mother died when I was very young and I don’t remember much of her, but my father cared for me fiercely; he was a cold and dour and austere man, as befits a black priest, but he learned ways to show it and I learned ways to show him I knew. So, while I was reared amongst ancient bones in a hole in the ground and taught to walk hand-in-hand with death, I was also taught that the love between parent and child is something freely given, not something to be earned.”

“Hmm. You’re right, Rathman. And it’s infuriating how right you are.” She sighed and looked back up at the stars. “My mother is a  _ bitch _ .”

“I’m sorry, Alexa.”

“Ah, you’ve done nothing. In fact, you’ve helped a great deal. Thank you.”

“ So you say. To my mind, I’ve done nothing but offer you a drink and tell you a little tale about my dad. All these  _ feelings _ and  _ emotions _ that the living possess are vexing to me.”

“Yet you feel them just as fiercely. Why don’t you tell me about your fears, Dulas Xul? We both know them already, but mayhap naming them will ease your mind.”

The necromancer stared off into the darkness for a long, awkward moment, then muttered, “The both of you are so fucking stupid.”

“Huh?”

“Him with his religious zeal and you with your hunger for glory. You’re going to get yourselves killed, the both of you. I don’t . . . I don’t have the strength to watch that again.”

“And that’s why you act like such a prick all the time. If you drive people away, you won’t have to fear losing them.”

“Something like that.”

“ Ill luck is not a curse, Dulas Xul. And  Zakarus is not Aidan, and I am not Blood Raven, and tomorrow is not yesterday. I think that this speaks well of you, in a strange way; if you’re so afraid to lose something, you must cherish it deeply.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“That’s that thing you say when you know I’m right.”

“I hate you so much.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Aye. Here I am.”

“I won’t tell you to try and ignore your troubles, necromancer. I know that that never goes well, and I know you’ve seen terrible things and endured terrible loss and that your troubles run deep. I will, though, tell you what they once told me; what they tell Askari warriors when training us to overcome the fear of death. I think you worry about tomorrow overmuch. I think you focus so much on what terrors tomorrow might bring that you fail to enjoy today.”

“Hmm. I won’t say that I think you’re right, but . . . I think that that might be a start.”

“Good. And one other thing.”

“Oh?”

“The way you and the paladin carry on delights me. And dear Fiona delights me even more; praise  Athalua that our paths cross. But do you remember what I said to you earlier, and then told you not to think on it?”

“Something about each of us having two hands.”

She reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it. “I did, indeed.”

“Oh. Oh, my.”

The necromancer leaned against her, and they sat watching the stars together in silence for a moment before he muttered, “You know, I’ve never sucked a princess’s cock before.”

She slapped him on the back of the head, but as she did she laughed asked, “Are you doing that on purpose? I have to know.”

“Doing what on purpose?”

“Finding a clever and unique way to ruin it every time I say something nice about you. I’d almost call it a talent.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re reasonably charming for a tactless, caustic rake of a man.”

“And you’re enchanting, for a self-important, vainglorious heiress.”

“No, no, don’t you get up; I wasn’t finished with you.”

He smirked. “As you command, your royal highness.” 


End file.
